NiGHTS: Back to Earth
by The Magic Pickle Fairy
Summary: The continuation of Journey on Earth. When Reala receives a pair of shoes that sends others to the Waking World from Wizeman. Reala paraloops NiGHTS but got dragged along with NiGHTS. Can they both make their quest back to the Dream World?
1. Actuality 1: Return

A/N: Just so you know this is a sequel to NiGHTS: Journey on Earth. So if you haven't read Journey on Earth, then read that before this one. Otherwise, enjoy!

NiGHTS: Back to Earth

Actuality 1

"JACKLE!" Reala yelled at the top of his lungs, "give me the Waking Watcher again!" He flew right into Jackle's room, where the orange Nightmaren was play poker with Puffy and Queen Bella.

Jackle just looked at Reala, and then smiled, "it's on the table!"

Reala snatched the crystal ball from the table, and was about to leave the room when Puffy made an observing comment, "This Waking Watcher has become an obsession of yours."

The eyes of Reala glared right at the round ball like Nightmaren, "I do not obsess over anything!"

"Sure you do," said Queen Bella, "for how many of these human years have you been looking at this? You haven't been doing this before we were sent to the Waking World."

The first rank nightmaren just made an annoyed sigh, he couldn't believe this, "I don't know how many human years I've started looking at the Waking Watcher, and I don't care, I don't look at it often."

"It's the third time tonight," said Jackle. "I only touch it once a week; you use it all the time."

Reala just glared at the three, then left Jackle's room. "I'm not obsessed," he mumbled, flying to his own room, "just checking a few things in the Waking World, that all."

The room of Reala's was a notable one, a red and black checkered room with a throne in the middle. He flew over to the throne, and turned the Waking Watcher, "on." He viewed a blonde hair girl playing the violin with a red headed girl who was singing. His eyes focused on the red haired girl.

* * *

"In the night, dream delight, I want to see you standing there," Pammy sang out as Helen was playing the tune on her violin. They were practicing on the gazebo for the Open Mic Night at a coffee house near their school named: The Hot Cup. Joy had discovered it about three years ago, only a few days after the school play of "Peter Pan."

Ever since she understudied for Ren, Pammy had been getting speaking roles in the school plays. Last time when she performed in Wicked, she had the role of Nessarose. Pammy had never received a lead, but she was happy with the parts that she got.

Helen was still a violinist; she volunteered to play for the plays that Pammy performed in. Her, Pammy and Joy were a trio for the Open Mic Nights. Joy wrote the lyrics, Pammy sang and Helen played the 

violin. The only exception was the next one, in which it was a song that NiGHTS had taught Helen. Helen was inspired to teach Pammy the words.

"In the night, dream delight, you're the one I've waited for." Pammy didn't really sing out her feelings. She and Devin dated for almost three years, but they recently agreed to break up, and meet new people. They were still good friends, just not together anymore. "I think I have this song down."

"Great," said Helen, "Mum has made some lemonade if you would like some?" It was the brisk of June, and school was almost over. So lemonade was appropriate for the occasion. Both of the girls went inside to grab the pitcher from the fridge.

When Helen poured the pitcher of lemonade into Pammy's cup, in which Pammy immediately added sugar to the lemonade. "You know Helen," Pammy observed, "I often have the feeling like I'm being watched."

Helen looked around, "I have that feeling too, but only when I'm with you." She poured into another glass for herself. "Strange isn't it?"

* * *

Reala held the crystal ball in his hand, with an appalled look on his face, "what?" Maybe he was obsessing, if Pammy could tell if someone was watching her. This would be the first time he would obsess over anything. He turned off the Waking Watcher 'off.'

Right when that happened Jackle entered the room, he threw a pair of shoes at Reala, "Wizeman made these; he wants you to use this on NiGHTS."

Reala flew over to fetch the shoes, "why can't you do it?"

"You know that I can't paraloop," said Jackle. "You have to paraloop another creature to send it to the Waking World."

The boots of Reala came off as he put on the other pair. They looked exactly the same as his old ones, "whatever Wizeman wants."

* * *

Rebecca had just came to her Nightopia which was a computerized like place. NiGHTS was playing on his flute as Rebecca waved over to him, "hey, NiGHTS!"

"Hi Rebecca!" NiGHTS called back as he waved, but NiGHTS was soon greeted by another.

"Hello NiGHTS," Reala gave a smirk "having fun with those Visitors again?"

"Reala," Rebecca called out, "why can't you just leave NiGHTS alone?"

"Okay, I will leave your friend alone," Reala smirked, "if NiGHTS here wins a battle against me."

"Fine," said NiGHTS, "it's on!"

Reala flew right over to NiGHTS, but NiGHTS grabbed onto Reala wrists. "You seriously think you're going to win Reala?"

Reala kicked NiGHTS in the shin which released a yelp from NiGHTS. Which was Reala's chance, he paralooped NiGHTS, it was a paraloop so strong that it slowly sucked NiGHTS in. "I think I can win, NiGHTS, I am very capable."

NiGHTS tried to pull himself out of the paraloop that was sucking him in, but instead, NiGHTS grabbed onto Reala.

Reala tried to struggle to get out, but NiGHTS was grabbing him way to tightly. Soon enough they vanished.

"What?" Rebecca asked herself in full confusion, "I better ask Owl about this."

* * *

Will, Helen and Pammy walked down Bellbridge at night time in the rain. They were walking back from The Hot Cup after Open Mic Night. It was raining very harshly at Bellbridge, but Will brought a large umbrella. "Thanks for watching the show," Helen thanked Will, "I knew that song had a lot of meaning for you."

"It did," said Will, "you and Pammy were very…."

Pammy was looking at her friends, and wasn't looking at the ground, because she tripped on something large. She made a loud scream and landed in a puddle, she looked over at what tripped her, or more precisely, who, this "who" was some black and red jester like creature that had neither a nose nor a neck. "I have to be dreaming."

The creature got up then looked at the fallen Pammy. He took out his hand to help her up.

The offer had given Pammy a lot of thought. She had just tripped over the creature that had deceived her three years ago. Now he was offering her for help to get her back up. She knew that she should just push the hand back and get up herself, but she had some certain feeling that she should just grab the hand then let Reala pull her up.

It took too long for Pammy to think, Reala grabbed her hand and pulled her up along with him. He then harshly asked, "Why do you have to be so hesitant?"

Pammy slightly blushed. Soon the reds on her cheeks faded away, she then spoke up, "well excuse me for just dumping me just because I didn't have any use to you!"

That was when Helen stopped her, "Pammy, Pammy, let's get you and Reala to your house and we will discuss this there."

"And you mind if I come with?" said another voice which seemed like it was above them. The voice belonged to NiGHTS.

"NiGHTS!" Will and Helen brighten up in that rainy night they also both said, "Sure."

So the three teenagers and the two nightmarens treaded through the waters to find anything that was relevant to dry.


	2. Actuality 2: Argument

NiGHTS: Back to Earth

Actuality 2

Pammy's was a neighbor of Helen's, but Pammy lived near the train station so it was more convenient for getting out of the rain. When the five had gotten inside, Pammy had immediately asked, "Would anyone like any towels?"

"Yeah, sure," said Helen, "I bet we would all use some towels."

Pammy nodded her head and went upstairs to grab five towels. They were soaked from the rain after all; in need of being dry.

"Oh," Helen had just remembered, "Pammy and I performed the song that you taught me, Will watched it."

"That's great!" NiGHTS exclaimed, "I bet you guys did great."

"They did," Will confirmed, "they both did an awesome job."

Pammy came downstairs with a pile of light blue towels, she handed them to each person or Nightmaren that was there, "here you go guys!"

"Thanks Pammy!" NiGHTS exclaimed, he dried himself off, but was still wet, so he shook his head around which only made everyone else wetter.

"Way to go NiGHTS," Reala said in an angry fashion, "now you've made us all wet."

"But you're already wet," NiGHTS observed, "how could I make them wet if they're wet already?"

"Um, maybe we should talk about why you're here," Helen said as the covered her hair with her towel. She pointed to some couches to sit on.

NiGHTS flew over to one of the seat then sat crossed legged. "So, let us explain!"

Reala sat on the edge of the sofa setting opposite to the one NiGHTS was sitting on, "I don't think you know NiGHTS, but those shoes…."

"Transports anything paralooped to this world?" NiGHTS made the right guess then smirked, "you did paraloop me; I could have guessed it had to do something with that."

"Well, I do remember you transporting me to Helen's Nightopia," Will said as he sat next to NiGHTS.

"Same here," Helen sat next to Will, "only that I was transported to Will's Nightopia."

"Those were also special shoes," Reala explained, "very useful, could get myself to anyone's Nightopia. Most of the times visitors can't get out, you two were too lucky."

Pammy finally dried herself enough to sit on the couch where Reala was sitting. "But still, if you paralooped NiGHTS then how did you get here?"

Reala just glared at NiGHTS, "You Know Who pulled me with!"

"You mean Voldamort?" NiGHTS jokingly asked.

"No," Reala sputtered out, "I mean you!"

"Well, sorry, I just didn't know what was happening to me, I panicked" said NiGHTS, and then explained further, "we were still fighting after we went to the Waking World. I grabbed Reala then threw him to the ground. Then you guys came, and Pammy tripped over Reala. Which was very funny, I may admit."

Pammy had gotten the story completely, yet she had to ask, "But Reala, why did you help me get up?"

"You think that I would be inconsiderate?" Reala answered.

"Um, yeah," Pammy pointed out, "you were inconsiderate enough to use me for your own evil needs."

"You aren't over this, are you?" Reala crossed his arms, "You seemed fine for all of these years until you saw me again." Reala was right, looking at the Waking Watcher all of these years, she was doing well with her life, not mad at Reala at all for all that he's done to her.

"What do you mean, 'all of these years?'" Pammy was as mad as ever, "I may have a hard time remembering my dreams, but I think I would remember seeing you!"

"Oh, about that," NiGHTS announced, "Jackle told me that Reala here has been viewing you with the ball thingy that Jackle owns. Reala's been using it more than Jackle."

Pammy took a deep breath; she wished that she didn't know that. Not only had Reala used her, stole her first kiss, he also had been stalking her, "Just…why?"

"I don't know," Reala shrugged, "you're just…different from other visitors."

It was Helen's cue to stop this argument, "guys, can we please stop this? Perhaps we need to get to sleep."

"I can do this all night," Reala smirked, "I don't sleep."

"Well, I do," Pammy argued, "you may take joy into bickering, but I don't. So how about us humans get to sleep and you two can watch TV?"

"Fine with me," said NiGHTS.

Pammy went back upstairs to grab some blankets for Will and Helen.

NiGHTS just looked at Reala.

"What do you want NiGHTS?" Reala asked, annoyed as ever.

"I think you're starting to like her," NiGHTS excitedly observed, "you've never actually took a liking to a visitor before."

"Are you deaf?" Reala asked, "We were just arguing. Also, I hate her as much as any other Visitor, if not more."

"Good," Pammy called out as she walked downstairs, "I also have a boyfriend, and he is much nicer than you." When Pammy got to the couches, she threw a blanket and a pillow for each couch for Will and Helen to sleep on. Next, she signaled NIGHTS and Reala to the basement, "The TV's down here."

"Sweet!" NIGHTS exclaimed then flew down the stairs, "come on Reala, her basement is awesome."

"Fine," Reala took a look at Pammy, "you better not lock us in there."

"Of course not," said Pammy, "then I would lock NiGHTS in with."

Reala went downstairs with NiGHTS to see a well furnished carpeted room with an HDTV on the wall. It was a room that Reala wouldn't mind being locked into if NiGHTS wasn't with him.

NiGHTS was already rummaging through Pammy's DVD collection as he looked at the back of the cases.

Yet Reala wondered why she said that she had a boyfriend if they had recently broken up. I was obviously a lie that she told; it didn't matter to Reala, they both greatly disliked each other anyway.

"Hey Reala," NiGHTS called out, "how about this Labyrinth movie?"

"Sure why not," Reala shrugged as he flew over to the couch. Reala knew this was going to be a long night.


	3. Actuality 3: Window

NiGHTS: Back to Earth

Actuality 3

It was a Saturday morning, but the alarm clock at Pammy's house rang anyway. It was set loud so Pammy could hear it in the first place. The overture of The Phantom of the Opera played vociferously, which woke Will and Helen up. It was even heard in the basement where NiGHTS and Reala were taking place.

"Gosh, I hate that girl," Reala commented with the remote on his hand, surfing through channels, "the one song that she had to choose, and it was that one."

"It could be worse," NiGHTS said, "could be screamo."

Helen covered her ears, while Will was just surprised by how an alarm clock could be so loud.

Pammy had finally turned the snooze on, and then turned off the alarm clock. She made a loud yawn, and then made her way downstairs, "Hi!"

Helen rubbed her eyes, "Morning Pammy, still have that song for your alarm clock?"

"Yeah, I think it has the right amount of volume, I won't be changing it any time soon," Pammy confirmed, "but we better get some breakfast, we have some cereal."

"Cereal sounds good," Will confirmed as he nodded his head, but took something else into consideration "should we ask NiGHTS and Reala if they would like some?"

She thought it was all a dream, but it was reality. Pammy looked at the door to the basement where she heard sounds from the television. "So, they're really here?"

Helen looked at Pammy confused, "of course they are."

The door of the basement opened where she saw the two Nightmarens on the couch. She came to ask, "Would you like some breakfast?"

"Sure," NiGHTS stretched his arms, then flew up the stairs, ""how about you Reala?"

"I'm not hungry," Reala answered.

"We're Nightmarens, we never get hungry," NiGHTS told Reala the cold hard fact, "but food tastes so good!"

"Fine," Reala rolled his eyes, "I'll eat for once."

The three went back upstairs where Will was pouring some Coco Puffs into a bowl, it seemed like they already served themselves the chocolaty cereal.

NiGHTS flew over to the kitchen table to pour himself a box of Coco Puffs. Reala just leaned on the wall.

That was when there was a knock on the window. It was a teenage boy with long brown hair and dark blue eyes. He waved to his friends.

"Oh, hi Devin," Pammy waved, she opened up the window for Devin to climb over.

Reala couldn't believe this human behavior as he watched Devin climb the window; he just had to say "it's called a door you know," from the ridiculousness of that boy.

What Reala had just said made Devin looked over at Reala which gave him an astonished look on his face. He was so surprised by the creature that he slipped and fell over the window.

Which marked another reason why Reala didn't like humans, they were so clumsy. This was the second time a human fell at his expense. If they weren't so absent minded they wouldn't fall so often.

"Holy guacamole," Devin cried out, "what kind of costume is that?"

For some reason Reala never liked Devin from what he viewed on the Waking Watcher. He just thought that he was the most pathetic of humans. This wasn't the first time he met Devin; Reala took the joy of giving him Nightmares and stealing his Ideya. "It's not a costume you imbecile."

Devin got up to rub his head, "then you're some kind of monster?"

"Monster?" Reala had an offended look on his face, "I'm a Nightmaren, not a monster."

Helen had to cut in again, "don't you guys have human forms?"

"I've never tried that ever since I got here," NiGHTS observed, "I better try it." NiGHTS clapped his hands to summon a purple light, where he circled the air above him. The circle came down to reveal his human form, a fifteen year old boy with longish blonde hair and blue eyes, wearing the same clothing as NiGHTS. "Hey, it worked."

"Wait a second," Pammy butted in with quite the suggestion, "if you have a device that could send you back to the Dream World, then why can't you just go back to where you come from?"

The human NiGHTS bit his lip, "Oh, yeah, about that…"

"When NiGHTS threw me down in the rain, they broke," Reala coldly admitted, he gave his brother a glare, "thanks a lot!"

"We tried to come back to the Dream World last night, but his paraloops just seemed to be normal ones." NiGHTS shrugged.

The whole conversation just made Devin confused, "wait, Dream World? Are you guys from the world that us humans go when we sleep?"

"You've guessed it," said NiGHTS, "have you been to the Dream Gate before? I don't seem to remember you."

Devin rapidly shook his head, "I don't know what a Dream Gate is, I've only assumed from conversation. I also assume that the device that brought you here broke, so you're stuck here in this world."

"So you think you're so smart huh?" Reala faced Devin so closely that it went beyond Devin's personal space, "then, fix the shoes!"

"What shoes?" Devin asked.

"The device that sent us to this world," Reala explained, "I thought you were smart."

Devin didn't like Reala just as much as Reala didn't like him, "fine then, I will try to fix the shoes," he yelled out to the creature, "just let me look at them!"

Reala took off his boots them threw them at Devin, in which Devin caught. "Try your best."

"I will," Devin nodded his head, "I sure will."

Reala flew over to Pammy who was taking out a box of Cheerios, "Good thing you dumped him."

Pammy flashed a look at Reala, "We agreed to break up; looking at the situation we might get back together again."

"Sure, I'm having a hard time getting a date anyway," Devin explained with an open mind, "also, we still get along, so why not?" Devin walked over to the table where everyone was eating then placed the shoes on the table. He took a look at the shoes.

"Can't seem to figure out what's wrong with them?" Reala asked with a smirk on his face.

"Are you able to figure this out?" Devin talked back to Reala; before Reala could respond Devin said, "I didn't think so." Devin took another look when he found some kind of containment, which he opened. "I think I might have found something."

Everyone went over to Devin to look at what Devin had found. It was five gray looking Ideya that spilled out of the boots. "What are these things?"

"They're Ideya," said NiGHTS, "energy that dreamer have, most Nightmaren steal them from dreamer."

"So that's what Nightmarens do with the Ideya," Will came to conclusion, "I've always wondered why they needed them."

"We primarily need Ideya for our quest to take over Nightopia," Reala explained, "but sometimes Wizeman uses them to make magic items too."

"Well, I guess we need more of this, 'Ideya,'" Devin said, "but I guess someone needs to sacrifice their energy."

"But we just can't get Ideya in the Waking World," NiGHTS protested, "it's physically impossible."

"I think I could try," Reala smiled, "anyone has all of their Ideya?"

"No!" Will and Helen cried, "We aren't going to give you our Ideya!"

That was when Devin came up with a better solution, "I'll ask my little sister about the situation, she knows a lot about this kind of thing."

"Oh yeah," said Helen, "Bridget, she's really into magic and the paranormal."

"It's worth a try," NiGHTS shrugged, "let's go Reala, if I can turn human, so could you."

"Nah, I'll just go out in public in my Nightmaren form," Reala became sarcastic. He clapped his hands to summon a dark light. In which he circled the air above his head with. The circle came down to reveal a sixteen year old boy with long black hair and blue eyes. "Okay, let's go see your sister."

"Finally you're being agreeable," Devin rolled his eyes, "let's go to my house, Bridget is probably there."


	4. Actuality 4: Onions

NiGHTS: Back to Earth

Actuality 4

Slits on an onion were cut into a criss cross pattern. It was Bridget's attempt to make her Ultimate Scrambled Eggs, which her plan was to put onion, green pepper, mushrooms, tomatoes and cheddar cheese into her recipe. She was very excited about what she was about to create, until disaster happened to her.

Devin and his friends walked into the kitchen, "Hi Bridget," he said, "we need your help."

That was when Bridget looked up. She was still chopping the onion, but paid no attention. The knife went into Bridget's finger which made her yelp; then she clutched her hand. Once she opened it she found out that her finger was bleeding, "it's bleeding," she expressed.

"Oh, sorry to hear that," Helen gave some sympathy to her.

A small corrupt smile came to Bridget's face, "want to see?"

"No!" Everyone cried a bleeding finger was something no one wanted to see.

"I was just kidding, geeze," Bridget looked at the group strangely, "let me grab a bandage." She went past the group to the bathroom where she could contain her injury with a bandage.

"Does the girl know better?" Reala asked, "no one wants to see blood."

Devin just sighed, "she doesn't have very good social skills, I think I've should have warned you."

"I think she's very expressive," said NiGHTS, "there's nothing's wrong with that."

Bridget came back with a bandage wrapped around her finger, "got the Hello Kitty band aid! Now, you guys need help from moi?"

"Yes," said Devin, "can we talk in your room?"

"But-but my eggs," Bridget looked back at her chopped vegetables, "I can't just leave them."

Reala just rolled his eyes; he disliked this girl even more than Devin, he said "there are more important things than breakfast."

"Fine," Bridget pouted, "let's go to my room, with a hungry stomach"

* * *

Bridget's room looked very mystical. It was covered with bookshelves full of New Age books along with Tarot decks. Her bed stood at the middle of the room, where glow in the dark stars and fairies were above, plastered to the ceiling. "So, Devin, what seems to be the problem?"

"Well, NiGHTS and Reala here," Devin pointed to the two Nightmarens in human forms, "come from the Dream World."

That was when Bridget perked up, "The Dream World? So you guys are Nightopians?"

"Actually", NiGHTS explained in a very polite matter, "We are not Nightopians, we're Nightmarens!"

"That doesn't sound that attractive," Bridget implied, she came to ask again, "are you sure that you're not Nightopians?"

What Bridget had said just made Reala mad, "Yes, we're sure, we can talk, we don't massively reproduce and we have much more emotion than Nightopians."

Bridget nodded her head, "well, you're rude like a Nightmaren, but you're friend seems too nice to be a nightmaren."

"Thank you," NiGHTS told the girl, even though she was being very racist, "but species is not important."

"Agreed," said Will, "now, let's explain the boots."

"Oh yeah," Helen responded, "The boots sends anyone in the Dream World to the Waking World, and the other way around. But the Ideya that powers them seemed to have broken in the rain last night."

"Well, actually," Bridget explained, "hard impact could destroy Ideya completely."

This Bridget seemed to know a bit too much about the Dream World according to NiGHTS. "How do you know about the Dream World so well?" NiGHTS asked, "I don't remember seeing anyone like you before."

Bridget went to her bookshelf where her stubby fingers strummed through the many books, until she picked one out, "Understanding the World of Dreams," she explained, "gives every detail about the Dream World. I've never been to the Dream Gate, but I know plenty about it."

"Great," Devin said, he knew that the two would be getting back to their own world soon, "now how about a way to get to the Dream World?"

"The only way to get to the Dream World is by sleeping, but if your way of getting to the Waking World is by Ideya, I have an idea." Bridget walked over to the treasure chest at the end of her bed. She opened it, and then rummaged through until she picked up a green stone, "about fifty years ago, someone developed Artificial Ideya. These were developed for people who lost their own Ideya, but still need it. Artificial Ideya could probably have the power to send you both back to the Dream World."

"Great," Reala was about to grab the stone, until Bridget took it away from his grasp. "Hey, you need to do something for me before I can give it to you."

"We are not playing games here," Reala was impatient; he was tired of this world full of annoying humans, "just give it to us."

"Not until you make me my Ultimate Scrambled Eggs," Bridget requested "I'm not cutting my any of my other fingers today."

* * *

NiGHTS had never cooked before, but he had seen Madeline cook, so NiGHTS thought he could mimic what Helen's mother had done.

Bridget sat at the kitchen table along with Devin, Helen, Pammy and Will. They decided to give the Nightmarens a learning experience. The onions were the only vegetable needed to be chopped.

Reala immediately grabbed the partially chopped onion to take a look at it, "so you're suppose to slightly cut the onion, then turn it to fully chop them?"

"Onion chopping sounds too confusing," NiGHTS complained.

A glare was given by Reala, NiGHTS had been so aggravating ever since he betrayed Wizeman, "I'll chop the onion; you scramble the eggs."

NiGHTS knew how to scramble eggs, he saw Helen do it three years ago, he gave glanced at Bridget "How many eggs would you like?"

"Four," Bridget answered as she put of four fingers, "they're in the refrigerator."

The onion got chopped into pieces, but Reala said out of annoyance, "of course the eggs are in the refrigerator, where else would they be?"

Bridget shrugged, "you come from the Dream World; you may not know where eggs go. They mostly go lying around on the ground where you come from."

That was when Will spoke up, "they've been here three years ago, so they know a thing or two about this world."

NiGHTS cracked the eggs into the bowl, "that would be true, yet I've never cooked anything before." Then NiGHTS looked around, "where's the whisk?"

"I usually use forks," Bridget answered, "they're in the drawer next to the sink."

The drawer immediately opened where a selection of knives, forks and spoons were sitting. NiGHTS grabbed a fork, and then began to rapidly stir the eggs. The young Nightmaren stirred so rapidly that it began to toss all over the kitchen, with very few left in the bowl.

The humans just laughed in reaction.

"It will be your fault when you get Salmonella," Reala cried as he glared at NiGHTS, "let me do the cooking! You can just watch like these other losers."

"Aw, is the sixteen year body getting to your veins?" NiGHTS joked.

"No, and you have no right to say that, you look younger than me," Reala cracked four more eggs into the bowl then began to scramble. Once he thought that he scrambled enough, he looked at the frying pan which was already set, and then he turned it on. Soon, he poured the eggs into the pan. "Here, now are you happy?"

Bridget was not satisfied, and was loud about it, "no, you have to squish it around with the fork, you also forgot the vegetables and cheese, and you didn't put any oil on the pan!" The not putting oil in the pan was a major problem, because the pan began to sizzle. It was news that the eggs were burnt.

"You better clean that off before it gets hard;" said Devin, "just soak it for now, I'll clean it up."

A glare flashed at Devin, "Just because I burnt the eggs, doesn't mean that I don't know how to clean!"

"Fine," Devin shrugged, "then cleans it yourself, I don't have to help."

Reala put the pan in the sink where he began to scrub. He had failed to get the Artificial Ideya. Guessing by Bridget's personality, it wouldn't easy to get the Artificial Ideya.

"You know what?" Bridget came to ask, "how about I just give it to you?"

Devin was very surprised by Bridget's action, "really, you don't need anything in return?"

"Don't ruin it for us you idiot," Reala snapped at Devin. This may have been his only chance to get what he wanted; he didn't want Devin to ruin everything.

"Well," Bridget came up with something, "if I need a favor from you guys, you better do it."

NiGHTS nodded his head in agreement, "fine."

Bridget gave to Artificial Ideya to NiGHTS, "keep it safe so you can go back to your true home."


	5. Actuality 5: Home

NiGHTS: Back to Earth

Actuality 5

To find a place for NiGHTS to stay was very easy for the humans. Helen's mother was happy to let NiGHTS stay in her house. Yet Madeline, Helen's mum, referred to NiGHTS as "Nicholas." it seemed like everyone who were at the events three years ago had forgotten that NiGHTS and Reala had cover names. They had all decided to call the nightmarens by their cover names. Yet the true problem wasn't the names, it was finding a place to live for Reala, or Ren.

Will gnawed on a sandwich, hungry from football practice. He was at the lunch table waiting for his friend to grab their own lunches. Will had already asked his father if Ren could stay at his house, but his father said, "No." Everyone else said that they would ask their parental units.

"What's up?" Devin came to the table with a bagged lunch, "hopefully you have good news, because I don't have any."

"Nope," Will said with his mouth full, "both of my parents said, 'no,' they said that I didn't even know him."

Devin sat down; he began to explain his situation; "my parents don't have any room in our house to admit anyone else. Yet then again, I explained that Ren was, 'my girlfriend's ex-boyfriend.'"

"I thought you broke up," said Will.

"No, we're back together," Devin responded, "we didn't really have a good reason for breaking up in the first place."

That was when Helen and Pammy came to the table with their lunch trays. Helen had spoken out, "so, what are your parents' responses?"

"We discussed it before you got here," Devin explained, "Both of our parents didn't like the idea."

"So, Pammy," Helen looked over at her friend, "what were your parents' responses?"

Pammy looked at her César Salad with sadness in her eyes, "I didn't ask them."

There was an appalled look on Will's face, "why didn't you?"

"I just feel uncomfortable with Reala living with me." That was Pammy's explanation it was simple, and understandable.

"That good news is," said Helen "is that my mum said that if Ren is just as well behaved as Nicholas, he could stay in May's old room."

Everyone remembered May. She would visit a few times a year until she graduated from college recently. She was immature for a fully grown woman, but delightful to talk to her. She had decided to 

permanently stay in America to find an acting job. She had nothing stable yet, but she was only looking for a job for a few weeks. So there was definitely room at the Cartwright residence.

"That's great," Will exclaimed, "as long as Ren stays well behaved…."

Pammy interrupted Will with some sarcasm, "Oh yeah, like that would ever happen."

"We could just tell him not to be his rude usual self," Helen suggested. She knew that it might have been difficult for Reala, but it was worth a try.

* * *

"So the bathroom is across Helen's room, and your room is here," Madeline had just finished the tour of the house. "It's a pleasure to have you stay with us, now Helen said that you are Nicholas' older brother?"

Ren knew if he wanted a place to stay, he had to stay polite to Helen's mother. Yet since she was a grown up, she was much less annoying, so this would be easy. "The pleasure's all mine, and yes, I am the older brother of Nicholas."

Soon enough Ren opened the door to find a very feminine looking room. It was pink, with a small white bed on the side. Across from the door was a vanity where Ren approached to look at his sexy self. His hands went right onto the table, when it hit a white box with a pink bow.

Immediately when he spotted the box, he opened it. Inside was a ballerina spinning to an unfamiliar tune. Along with the ballerina was a bunch of jewelry made from plastic. The whole box reminded him of that Labyrinth movie that he saw with NiGHTS the first night they came to the Waking World. He rummaged through the pile of plastic when he grabbed onto something round. When he pulled it out, it was no other than a white Artificial Ideya.

In reaction, Ren just smiled. He knew what the right thing to do was, it was to tell Helen and Nicholas right away, but he knew it wasn't the smart thing to do. He placed the Artificial Ideya back into the back; then closed it.

Ren's mission was to permanently place NiGHTS into the Waking World, so NiGHTS wouldn't get in the way of Wizeman's plans. That didn't mean that he was going to help NiGHTS get back to the Dream World. Ren was only trying to get himself back to the Dream World. Not to help his traitorous brother. Once Nicholas and his friends find all five Artificial Ideya, he was going to take them for himself to use to get himself back where he belonged.

There was a knock on the door, Ren closed the box, "come in."

It was Helen, "are you getting comfortable? I know that the decoration isn't your style, but I think you can make yourself at home here!"

"Nightmare is my only home," Ren said, "this is only a place to stay until I…and NiGHTS get back to our original positions."

"Well, I primarily came to your room to tell you that it's time for dinner," Helen came to tell Ren, "We're having spaghetti tonight."

"I'm not hungry," Ren was about to shut the door, but Helen grabbed it before it shut.

The truth was, Helen knew a little bit about Nightmarens, "Nicholas told me that you never get hungry, but mum would like to talk to you."

"Fine," Ren just rolled his eyes, Helen did tell him to be better behaved than he usually was, which meant that he had to eat this "food" that humans needed so much. He knew that this was only temporary, for him at least.

* * *

By the time Ren and Helen came downstairs Nicholas and Madeline were already at their seats. Helen sat down, and then served herself some spaghetti.

Ren looked at the odd supplement, as Helen gave him some, he just had to ask: "how do you eat this?"

Everyone just stopped in silence; Nicholas just said in reaction "Ren, you never had spaghetti before?"

"We don't really come from a place where we eat spaghetti," Ren told his brother, "you should know that."

"Well, yeah, but we've been here before," said Nicholas, "let me show you." Nicholas picked up his fork, "you twirl it around with your fork," Nicholas did as he said by twirling the spaghetti, "then you eat it." Nicholas put the warm spaghetti in his mouth.

It took a short time until Ren had the twirled spaghetti into his own mouth. It was actually very good; the sauce had a slight spiciness to it, yet, satisfying. This was actually the rare time when Ren liked a food item. He twirled another fork full of spaghetti to eat.

Madeline made a little giggle, "you seem to enjoy this spaghetti, even though you have never tried it." She found Ren very amusing. He was as much as a character as Nicholas according to her.

"Well," Ren dabbed his lips with a napkin, "it must be your cooking."

Nicholas wanted to make a groaning sound from that complement. It seemed like Madeline would like Ren much better than him if he kept on with those complements.

"Why thank you," Madeline exclaimed, "I should teach you sometime."

Ren took a deep breath; he knew that he was not a good cook, since he failed on Bridget's eggs, "cooking isn't for me."

"Fine, fine," Madeline nodded her head, "But it's nice that you and your brother are living with each other again, you must be excited."

"Oh," Ren smiled, "Nicholas must be much more excited than I am." He made a laugh as he glanced at Nicholas. Neither of them liked their presence, but they would have to live the human life together.


	6. Actuality 6: Frilly

A/N: Sorry for the wait, my excuse is: my internet won't let me submit the file. So I've submitted it at school.

NiGHTS: Back to Earth

Actuality 6

Wizeman had been noticing that his main first rank Nightmaren hadn't been around in a while. Yet then again, he hadn't been hearing about NiGHTS stepping in to destroy his plans either. The only thing that Wizeman would assume was that Reala was taken to the Waking World along with NiGHTS. Without Reala his Ideya progression went at a standstill.

All that Wizeman could do was to call his other first rank Nightmaren, "Jackle!"

The invisible orange Nightmaren had appeared. He had bowed down to his master, "yes master?"

"I need to…receive your Waking Watcher," Wizeman commanded, "I sense that Reala is in the Waking World."

"Speaking of Reala," Jackle answered, "I think it's in his room."

Curiously had spread in Wizeman's mind, "and why is it in Reala's room?"

Jackle knew the answer to that one, and he was sure about it, "Reala's been obsessing with the Waking World for years now." Jackle paused; he added something "it seems to be tuned to one visitor."

"And the visitor would be?"

"Hmm, well, I can't recall," Jackle stood up then began to ponder, "some orange head, definitely of the female gender."

Wizeman remembered an orange haired girl before when he was once in the Waking World, with the intentions to rule it himself, "Pamela?"

"Umm, no," Jackle was still thinking, "It's very similar, ended with a Y."

That was when Wizeman grew impatient, not angry or displeased as usual, just impatient, "just receive the Waking Watcher!"

"Yes master," Jackle went back into a bow then faded away.

Somehow, Wizeman already knew that there would be chaos in the Waking World where NiGHTS and Reala were.

* * *

Pammy just wanted to scream, could the second clock tick any slower? The last day of school was always like that. She was about to go as crazy as Jackle if the clock ticks any more slowly. When the bell had fianally rung, she got up then yelled, "Yes!"

Will, who was in her homeroom class, had noticed her scream of joy. He approached Pammy, "excited?"

"Well you know, last day of school," Pammy confirmed, then added, "and my first date with Devin since we came back together again!"

Will nodded, "yep, and Helen told me that it's a double date."

"Yep, let's find Devin and Helen," Pammy fled out of the room with full excitement.

* * *

When the four came out of the school building, they came to know that they had two surprise guests with the names of Nicholas and Ren. They hung out at the end of the front stairs, as they waited for their hosts to arrive.

Helen just looked at them with full astonishment, "Nicholas, Ren? How did you get here?" Helen had the rights to ask that, the school was far from Helen's house for anyone who couldn't drive, the only way they would had made it was if they took the train, in which they had no money to buy any tickets.

"We took the train here," Nicholas explained, "I remembered what stop to get off at from three years ago."

"Okay," Helen nodded, but was still wondering: "where did you get the money to buy the train tickets?"

"We took your emergency money Madeline told us about," Ren explained to Helen. He gave her a grim smile; he knew this was a sinful thing to do.

"Well," Helen hesitated for a second; she really didn't want to say this "isn't that money used for emergencies?"

"Boredom is an emergency," Ren talked back at Helen.

Pammy was very upset that both Nicholas and Ren coming to school when she was about to have a date with Devin, "can't you afford to get back? We're going to have a double date at the park."

Ren just gave Pammy a look, "date?" he asked slyly.

"Yeah, a date," Pammy had spoken, "isn't that what couples do?"

Seriously, Ren didn't know a thing about Devin and Pammy getting back together, "couples?" continued with the sly one worded questions.

"Ren, can you stop with the one worded questions?" Nicholas asked, "It is quite factual that Devin and Pammy are together again. I bet you would have known with that Waking Watcher of yours if you haven't sent us here!"

"It's not mine its Jackle's; also I wouldn't know because I don't check it often." Ren hissed. He hated it when anyone mentioned his obsession, in which it wasn't an obsession at all in Ren's point of view.

"Can you please stop," Pammy cried, still aggravated about Reala watching her for the past three years, "you can fight when you get to Helen's house."

"I think not my dear," Ren grinned a sharp grin, "we're coming with you if you like it or not! We waited two hours for you to come, and we are coming with you."

"Ren," Nicholas had spoken out, he knew that Reala was the odd one out in a love triangle, if he could admit it or not, but it was still not excuse to disturb the two, "you know that dates are special and…."

"Shut up Nicholas."

* * *

After Will had set up the blanket, Helen gave Devin and Pammy two tuna salad sandwiches. "Will and I will give one half of ours to Ren and Nicholas."

"Oh no, allow us," said Pammy.

It was already too late, Ren already had taken a bite to Will's sandwich, "needs more pickles."

Helen was just offended by Ren's comment, especially since he was too scared to make food himself, "I didn't use pickles; I've used celery!"

"No wonder," Ren took another bite.

That was when the six were approached by someone. Someone who was a friend of Helen's and Pammy's, it was Joy. She winked at them as she tilted her knitted white hat, "Hi there, enjoying the lovely day?"

"Yes we are," said Helen, "winter seems to be finally over!"

"So, Ren, Nicholas, I have been hearing from Helen and Pammy about your problem," Joy began, "I also know that you need Artificial Ideya to enter the Dream World again."

"Cut to the chase," Ren looked at the girl, "do you have an Artificial Ideya or not?"

"Well, no," Joy said disappointedly, "but I found out about a beauty pageant that is giving away a gift basket with an Artificial Ideya in it for the winner." Joy gave Pammy a flyer with the information.

"Good," said Ren, "so you three would have to enter to…."

"Um, this isn't a beauty pageant for girls, it's for boys," Joy explained, "so Will, Devin, and you guys will have to enter." Joy smiled with excitement, "I've already made dresses for you!"

"Wait just a second," Devin defended himself, "I am not going to immaculate myself by wearing a dress."

"Actually, Joy, I feel the same way," Will admitted, "sorry."

"Well, Ren and I are technically genderless, so we wouldn't care what we wear," Nicholas explained, "so we would both be happy to enter the pageant!"

Ren finished up his sandwich, he actually didn't want to wear a dress, just like how Devin and Will felt. Yet if that was the only way back to Nightmare; then let it be.

"Wait a second," Pammy noticed from the flyer, "both of them need a talent to enter the pageant."

"We have talent," Nicholas defended, "I play the flute."

It looked like Ren could get away with this one; he didn't have any talent, "Well, looks like Nicholas would have to enter alone."

"Wait just a second," Pammy glanced at Ren, "you can act very well, Joy can write a monologue for you."

"Fine," said Ren as he rolled his eyes. He really didn't want to do this.

Joy squealed a long eardrum breaking squeal, "okay! We can practice and do fittings at my apartment tomorrow to 12:00!" Just then, Joy left without a trace.

It looked like both Nicholas and Ren would have to wear dresses, it didn't matter to Nicholas, but it did to Ren.

"I will have to warn you," said Helen, "her dresses tend to be very frilly."

* * *

It was the big day. The only thing that Ren could say was, "I can't be leave I'm doing this." He was in a black and red frilly short dress with long boots. It was very suiting for Ren, and he looked very good in that particular dress, it was just that fact that he was in a dress he didn't like.

Joy didn't react as she put some safety pins on the dress; she made the dress a tad too big. The reason why she didn't react was because some of the pins were in her mouth. As she put on the final pin she said, "You must be nervous."

"I was never nervous before a show; I was Captain Hook in Peter Pan…."

"No, Pammy was Captain Hook," said Joy, "you disappeared into the Dream World after Nicholas defeated Wizeman."

"Same difference, she didn't do as well as I would have," Ren began to get full on himself.

"And how did you know how well she did?" Joy

Before Ren could answer that, Nicholas came into the dressing room with a purple and pink dress, which was much frillier than Ren's. "I'm ready!" Nicholas sang out.

"No just yet," said Joy, "you need make up."

For once, Ren was fine with it, "I wear make up all the time, I can put it on myself, where is it?"

"In this box," Joy pointed to a black box, "I have a lot of black lipstick if that's your preference."

"Of course it's my preference," Ren talked back, "what other lipsticks are out there that would look good for my complexion?"

"I'm not questioning," Joy said as she looked at Nicholas' dress, "perfect, no need for pins, although I think you would look cuter in pigtails. Joy took out a hair brush to put two little pony tails in his hair.

"What are we, dolls for you?" Ren sat down to put on some eyeliner.

"Hey, I've helped many girls with these pageants, and I get just as exited with them as I am with you…only that you look cuter." Joy looked at the clock, "oh, we have only five minutes!" Joy imedetally grabbed the makeup for Nicholas and quickly put it on his face, "good!"

* * *

The Pageant seemed to fly by quickly, it was very easy. Answer some questions, walking and waving the right way. Joy had helped them before, so it was simple for the two.

It was the talent competition, the biggest one of the pageant. It was also Nicholas' turn. He had his flute set up, along with the notes in his head. He had this song down! Only when he stepped onto the stage, he saw one of the judges that looked too familiar, with pink hair and pink eyes she wasn't difficult to miss, "Claris?" Claris was one out of the only four dreamers go retrieve all of their Ideya, although her and the other dreamer, Elliot didn't completely kill Wizeman, they did accomplish retrieving the Ideya.

Baffled by how he knew her name, Claris just said, "Mr. Nicholas Meier is your name? And you have a song that you wrote?"

"Um, yes," Nicholas nodded his head. He began to play his song; hopefully the song might jog her memory.

From the look of Claris' face, it did. She looked astonished, reminded her of an audition she had a long time ago, being fourteen in Twin Seeds. That was the song that she sung, heard it from a dream. After the song she asked, "What was your main inspiration to write this song?"

Nicholas was baffled; he couldn't say that the inspiration was the Visitors from the Dream World. All he said was, "from a dream I had."

Claris' companion, Ashlee spoke out, "you hit the notes very smoothly, and the tune is very memorable. What do you name it?"

"Dreams Dreams," Nicholas answered.

"Very good, you may leave," said Ashlee, the other judge.

Nicholas left, feeling very accomplished. All he had to do was to wait for everyone else to finish their talents.

Ren was next, with his monologue. He was embarrassed by his attire and the monologue itself. He sure hoped that his fellow Nightmarens weren't watching.

* * *

Jackle appeared in front of Wizeman once again, only this time he had a crystal ball in his hand. He turned it on, and then tuned to who they had known as Reala, only to see him in a frilly dress, acting very mad at nothingness.

"Do humans of the male gender usually wear clothing such as this?" Wizeman asked Jackle.

Jackle was just gazing at the Waking Watcher, with his eyes wide open; he wouldn't usually see Reala like this. "Not usually."

"He probably has an explanation," Wizeman told Jackle. They continued to watch.

* * *

"Very good," said Claris, "I just love how you projected the emotions involved in the monologue."

"You are way too nice Claris," said Ashlee, "the monologue is a tad cliché."

"I didn't write it," Ren mumbled.

"Then we will only take your acting to account then," said Claris, "but what made you choose this monologue?"

"An acquaintance of mine wrote it," Ren explained, as he hoped that the monologue itself wouldn't do anything harmful for his performance.

"Very good, you may leave," said Claris.

* * *

When the results of the three finalists came, everyone was very excited. "Before I announce the finalists, may I talk to Mr. Nicholas Meier in private?"

"Someone's in trouble," one of the young men called out in a playful manner.

Nicholas stepped up onto the stage, he wondered if she recognized him, or if he actually was in trouble, "what is it about?"

Claris left the stage, "follow me." She had to know about this child, who he was, where he got the song. They came to a dressing room, immediately she asked, "Do you know a fellow named NiGHTS?"

Nicholas thought it was the right things to do to show her instead of tell. He clapped his hands to release a purple light which he circled the floor with around him. He released the circle that floated around him to reveal his true form: NiGHTS. Before Claris could react, he said, "I am NiGHTS."

Then, Claris reacted. She stuttered with fear and excitement at the same time. "H-how d-did you get here in this world?"

"Reala sent me here, but I pulled him along with me." NiGHTS explained, "Ren is actually Reala." Then NiGHTS pleaded to Claris, "we need to win this competition, there is an Artificial Ideya in that gift basket you're giving away; we need that and three more to get back home."

Claris smiled, "for you NiGHTS, of course, you were going to win anyway!" Claris was fully honest, that Nicholas boy was charming along with talented and looked so cute.

NiGHTS smiled back, "thank you!"

* * *

After the pageant, Nicholas and Ren were at the dressing room back in their regular clothes, trying to rub off the makeup. The rest of the group was there. Claris came with the basket in her hands, "congratulations Nicholas," she said, "and good luck with the other artificial Ideya."

Nicholas picked up the stone; it was a red one, of courage. Then Nicholas picked up the rest of the basket then gave the rest of the basket to Joy, "thank you for all of your help."

"No problem, I had fun," said Joy, "you were great to work with."

"Good job Nicholas," Will gave him a pat on the back, "how about some ice cream? It's my treat!"

Nicholas' eyes began to bright up. Nicholas hadn't had any ice cream since he came to this world. He wanted to taste the cold yet sweet concoction again. "Yeah, of course, let's go Ren!"

Ren, who never had any ice cream before sighed, he came with Will and Nicholas.

Devin walked over to the door, but before he exited, he looked at the girls, "coming with?"

"Can you wait for us?" Pammy asked, "I have a personal question for Joy."

"Okay," Devin shrugged, "fine with me!"

When Devin left, Pammy asked, "Where did you get the idea for the monologue?"

"Oh yeah," Joy blushed, "I've read your diary from three years ago, when Reala dumped you. I thought that it should be a taste of revenge."

"But…" Pammy was hesitant for a moment, and then began to ramble, "I am way over Ren, you know that I have a loving boyfriend, and my life is good without that monster of on ex."

"I don't think so," said Joy, "Ren told me that you flipped out at him when you met him last week."

"Also," Helen added, "you refused to let Ren live with you."

Pammy thought about it for a moment. Maybe they were right. She did indeed flip out at Reala when they first met for the first time in three years. She also never asked her parents about Ren living with her. She had loved him at one point, and she was very upset when she found out that Ren never loved her. Yet she had always thought that she was over it ever since she had cut her hair and helped Helen dump Jackle. Maybe, she still had some sort of liking for that Nightmaren.

"Sorry Pammy," Joy apologized, in reaction to the long pause, "maybe that was a little harsh."

"That's okay," Pammy let out a smile. Joy may have been harsh, but it made her realize many things.

"Well, let's just get some ice cream," said Helen, "the boys are waiting."

Pammy thought some more about the whole situation as they walked. Helen had to put up with a lot with two Nightmarens living with her, "hey Helen?" she asked. She was about to suggest something that would slightly surprise Helen, "I know that I wasn't being supportive with the whole living situation with Ren. Maybe I should ask my parents if he could live with us." She knew that this was the only way to have her get over Ren. By having him live with her.

"For the full truth," Helen told Pammy, "Ren has been so rude to all of us besides Mum. If its fine with your parents, my Mum and Ren, then its fine with me."

The three stepped outside; Ren had to ask, "What were you talking about?"

"A possible location change for you?" Pammy asked, "We know that it's such a hardship for you to live with your traitorous brother. So perhaps you could live with me?"

They all began to walk to the ice cream parlor. Ren thought, Pammy seemed to understand too well how much of a hardship it was to live with his brother. At the same time he had that Artificial Ideya right in May's room where he was staying at. He needed to keep that secret until he could get himself home before NiGHTS has a chance to find it himself. "Not tonight, maybe another day."

"Fine, fine," Pammy nodded her head, "I need to ask my parents anyway."

"Good," said Ren, "I just need another day to...orient myself."

That was when everyone came to the ice cream parlor. They had all went inside to grab some cones. Nicholas was glad to taste chocolate ice cream again. It was like Ren with spaghetti as for Nicholas for ice cream.


	7. Actuality 7: Work

NiGHTS: Back to Earth

Actuality 7

The phone rang around the same time Helen was practicing her violin which irritated her that it rang when her mother wasn't home, but she stopped at mid song to pick it up, "Hello?"

"Hey Helen, it's me," Helen recognized the voice, it belonged to Pammy. "My parents were okay with Ren staying, has your mom and Ren made the decision?"

"Mom was fine, and so was Ren," Helen explained, "would you like him to come over now?"

"Hmm, why not?" Pammy sounded like she could go either way. This was the way she felt, she was nervous about the awkwardness of her ex-boyfriend living with her, but she was ready to get over him.

"Okay," Helen nodded, "we will be right over."

Helen put the violin back into her case. She went downstairs to find Nicholas and Ren. They watching some strange cartoon with a purple bear mouse cat thing that cooked strange foods, "Hey, Ren? Pammy said that you can live with her now."

"You mean now, now?" Ren asked he had the white Artificial Ideya in his pocket, so he was good to go. He was very calm about this. He knew if he wanted to keep the white Artificial Ideya from Nicholas, he had to relocate; it was perfect that Pammy volunteered herself to welcome him to her home. Yet Ren wondered by Pammy would suddenly volunteer herself to let him live with her. Before she was just plain mad at him. Ren smiled, she was so not over him and what he did three years ago.

"Yes, now," said Helen, "unless if you don't want to of course."

Ren stood up, "of course I want to," he immediately replied; then he looked at Nicholas who opened his mouth, "no, Nicholas, I don't like her."

Nicholas closed his mouth. If Ren knew what he was about to say, then it was best not to say it.

* * *

The house of Pammy was the first building that Ren had been in since Nicholas had pulled him to the Waking World. It was a nice house, near the train station. Only that day when he stood in front of it again it was very bright and warm out along with very dry.

Helen rang the doorbell to Pammy's house. It was quick for her to answer, "Hey guys!" She gave a slight smile to Ren. This was going to be difficult, and chaotic, but this seemed to be the only way for her to stop having feelings for him.

"Hi Pammy," Helen greeted with a curtsy, "I have Ren here."

"Hello," Ren looked over at Pammy, "you have my room set up?"

"Of course I do," Pammy had told Ren, "It's upstairs, let me show you."

Ren and Helen stepped inside of Pammy's house. They both followed Pammy upstairs to see a room that looked average. It had a bed, a wardrobe and a bed stand. It looked nicer than May's room, it also wasn't pink.

"So, I guess this is goodbye," said Helen. She immediately went downstairs; she wasn't going to at all miss Ren. It was going to be peaceful where Helen was, even though she sort of felt bad for Pammy, even though she did put it all on herself.

"Well," said Pammy, "would you like to meet my parents?"

"What is with you kids and having parents?" Ren asked, "They seem like they control you."

"What's with you Nightmarens and having Wizeman?" Pammy asked back, "he controls you."

Ren just sighed then rolled his eyes, she had no understanding at all of what he had to go through to please Wizeman. "Okay, let's meet them." He walked out of the door then went downstairs along with Pammy. They went over to the kitchen where Pammy's parents were attempting to carve an uncooked chicken.

"Mum, Dad, this is Ren, the boy who I was talking about," Pammy introduced Ren, and then she noticed something strange, "guys, what are you doing, its 12:00, why are you making dinner now?! Actually, why are you cooking?"

"We're trying to dismantle this chicken sweetie," answered John, Pammy's father.

"But aren't you suppose to cook it first?" asked Pammy, "I mean, it would be easier."

"Don't question your father when he's cooking," Tina, Pammy's mother demanded, she took out two banknotes then gave one for each of them, "how about you two go shopping? Come back when we're finished with dinner."

"Um, okay," Pammy took the bank note a bit worried about what would happened with her own parents cooking, "let's go Ren!"

* * *

It was a nice day at the city. Pammy took Ren to Opal Street, a place with a lot of local shops. Ren had bought a new set of clothing while Pammy bought herself a necklace. They walked around when they saw a store that caught Pammy's familiarity, "hey, that's the store that Bridget shops at."

"You mean Devin's sister?" Ren asked, "Should we go in?"

"Why not?" said Pammy, "I've heard from Bridget that it's very interesting."

The store: Magon looked a lot like Bridget's room, only without the bed. There were bookshelves full of New Age books and Tarot Cards. There was also a table with statues of mythical creatures at the middle. Ren looked at the statues, when he saw something that seemed too good to be true. It was a blue Artificial Ideya of intelligence. Reala knew that he had to be sneaky when buying it; he looked at the price tag, and saw that he couldn't afford it. He knew that there was only one option, he took the Artificial Idyea then ran.

"Young man," the old woman behind the counter called out, "you have to pay for that!"

Ren stopped right at his steps, he was obviously noticed.

Pammy was surprised by Ren's action, "Ren, how could you?"

The old woman came out from behind the counter, and then looked at Ren, "do you even know what this is?" Her violet eyes looked intimidating to Ren.

"Yes, I do, I would know more about than you," Ren had spoken back, "It's an Artificial Ideya of intelligence. It represents Ideya, which Visitors of the Dream World have as their dream energy. Nightmarens often takes people's Ideya, so they would need this to get the energy back."

The woman looked at Ren again, "you seem to know a lot, are you sure you're not some teenager?"

"Well," said Ren, "I am actually…."

"No, he's a regular teenage boy," Pammy lied, "nothing suspicious about him."

"A young girl named Bridget told me that there are Nightmaren walking the Earth," the woman explained, "I have a sneaking suspicion that you are one of them."

"Well, if Miss. Pammy would let me tell," Ren glared at Pammy, "I am a Nightmaren."

"Well, then," said the old woman, "that was the right answer, I won't call the police."

"Well, Good day then," Ren was about to walk out with the Artificial Ideya when the woman grabbed onto his ear, "ow!"

"Oh no," said the woman, "if you can't afford the Ideya, you will have to work for it!"

"You mean at the store?" Pammy asked, "We could do that."

"Yes, at the store," said the woman, "but not 'we,' it will be 'him,' you didn't do anything wrong."

"Fine," said Pammy, "but are you sure? He needs all of the help he could get, we really need him and his brother to go back to the Dream World as soon as possible."

The old woman thought for a while, she hesitated in her speaking, "well….okay…but no one else, this store is very small."

Pammy bit her lip, she didn't really like the idea of working with Ren alone, "Wait, perhaps the other Nightmaren can work here instead of me?" Pammy suggested she knew it would be difficult to work with Ren.

"Nope, too late," said the woman, "you can start working tomorrow."

* * *

A calm feeling went through Pammy's mind as she was sweeping the floor of the store. It was her first day of work at the shop. She was just cleaning up the shop a bit before opening.

She felt very relaxed, until Ren came by with three coffees from Starbucks. He was wearing his new clothing which consisted of a vest with had red and black straps across it, along with black and red baggy jeans with suspenders hanging from the ends. Earlier, Sadie, the old woman, had asked for a cup of coffee along with something else for Ren to sip on. Ren had put the cardboard container of coffee on the counter.

Sadie came from the back room, "Oh, coffee is here," She took out one of the cups then began to drink into the cup.

Ren took the other cup then gave it to Pammy, "I had some extra money for you, so here."

Pammy didn't really like bitter things; she only liked coffee with lots of sugar. Yet she knew that Ren would be extremely mad if she didn't accept the coffee. She grabbed the coffee then took a sip. She cringed from the flavor.

"I suppose you don't like it," Ren said as he took a sip of his own, he was fine with the black coffee.

Sadie laughed, "You forgot the sugar?"

"Well you're not the one complaining," Ren said, "its Pammy who can't drink anything without the substance."

"I sure can," Pammy tried to prove herself, she took another sip from her coffee, but cringed again, "well, I don't drink soda and water with sugar."

"That doesn't count," Ren told her.

"We need to get to work," Sadie told the two. She walked past the two then flipped the open/close sign to "open."

* * *

It took forever for any customers to come. Maybe that was what happened when they open at an early time. Pammy and Ren continued to argue about how Pammy couldn't take in anything bitter. When the bell by the door finally rang, Ren, within the world of debate said, "Well, maybe you're just too sweet."

He had said that at the wrong time, for it was Bridget that had entered the store. "Reala? Pammy? What are you doing?"

"We're arguing," said Pammy…then she saw that Bridget was a customer, "may I help you?"

"Yeah," Bridget nodded, "why are you working here?"

"Well, someone," Pammy glared at Ren, "tried to steal an Artificial Ideya from here, and now we have to work for it so someone will not get arrested."

"Oh, yeah, Sadie can be a bit too nice about shoplifting," Bridget nodded, "usually makes people work for the item; I think that's how she gets most of her employees."

"So, little girl," Ren said to Bridget, "are you here to bug us, or to buy something?"

"I am not little, I'm 14," Bridget crossed her arms, "also I'm here to buy some incense; they're in the back."

Ren began to taunt Bridget, "Should a 14 year old not be burning anything?"

"I'm old enough to contain fire, Reala," Bridget said, "I need Ocean Breeze and Dragon Blood please."

As Pammy went to the back to pick up the incense, Ren said, "by the way, you should call me Ren, not Reala."

"Why?" Bridget asked, "I mean, Reala is your name."

"Well, since human names sound different from Nightmaren names, we have to have cover names," Ren explained.

"That's just silly," was Bridget's immediate reaction she put her elbows on the counter, "does NiGHTS have a cover name?"

"Yes, he has a cover name, its Nicholas," Ren explained.

Just then, Pammy came back with two incense packs. She did the math of the two prices on her head then announced then, "That would be ten forty five."

Bridget took out a banknote and some change, "here you go."

"Thank you," Pammy put the banknote and the change under the counter with the other money.

When Bridget left, Ren began to think about what Bridget had said. That cover names were silly. The last living being that said that was Jackle, who had kept his name when he was stuck in the Waking World.

* * *

Speaking of Jackle, Wizeman had called him once again.

Jackle appeared in front of Wizeman, "Yes, my master?"

"I have a plan to retrieve Reala," Wizeman explained to his other first rank nightamren, "do you have your cards."

Jackle thought what Wizeman had just asked was… not so wise. Of course he had his cards with him, where would Jackle go without his cards? Yet Jackle slyly asked, "Why would you need my cards?"

"You have the power to throw them," Wizeman said, "perhaps I shall use the power of your cards to get yourself to the Waking World."

Jackle kind of groaned. He knew about the Waking World, and he didn't like it. Humans smelled bad and they were also so rude to him. Jackle definitely didn't want to go back. Yet he gave Wizeman his cards anyway. Wizeman would be very displeased if he didn't give Wizeman his cards.

"Very good Jackle," Wizeman took the deck, "now, I need to find a way for them to transport you to the Waking World."

"Wait a second," Jackle was in panic, "you mean, you will have my cards, and I won't?"

"Yes," Wizeman answered, simply and well put.

That was when Jackle screamed so loudly that all of Nightmare, Nightopia and the Dream Gate could hear.

"Oh my, someone sounds distraught," Owl told himself.

* * *

It was obviously heard that Pammy was rapidly pressing on the buttons of her phone, texting like a maniac. Sadie told them that customers do not fly in that quickly, but they do come. The bell by the door rang, and then Pammy put her cell phone back in her purse. It was Will, Helen and Nicholas.

"Hi Pammy, I've got your text," Helen said, "So, you're helping Ren get out of trouble?"

"Yeah, and we're working on the third Artificial Ideya," Pammy explained to Helen.

Ren had remembered that he was the only one who knew about the fourth Artificial Ideya, the one that was well hidden, for when they find the other four Artificial Ideya. He smiled from his amusement of his plan. Soon enough NiGHTS will be trapped in the Waking World, as Nightopia deceased slowly. He looked over at Pammy and Helen talk.

"So, what brings you here?" Pammy asked, "I bet you didn't just come just to see me!"

"We're buying me some clothes," Nicholas held up a shopping bag, "Will thought I should try a new look."

Will nodded his head, "yep, then Helen mentioned that you guys were working here, so we decided to pop in for a visit."

"Thanks," Pammy expressed the gratitude to the three, since she was as bored as a girl could be, "I never knew how long Ren could go so long without talking. I have kind of forgotten what his voice sounded like."

"I don't think so," Ren had finally spoken up, "you probably think of my voice all of the time."

"Ren," Nicholas sternly said at his brother, "if you don't like being teased about liking Pammy, then you shouldn't tease Pammy about liking you."

"I was not teasing Pammy about liking me," Ren concluded.

"Um, yes you were," Nicholas talked back to Ren, "and what you said was just wrong."

"Hey, you're not the boss of me," said Ren, "I can say whatever I want to."

"Really guys," said Pammy, "I was not embarrassed about what Ren had said, just leave it be."

Nicholas and Ren just glared at each other. Hatred came to both of their eyes as they burned with a passion.

"You, me, one on one, outside, now," Ren said, "If you win, I will stop teasing Pammy. If I win, you have to stop teasing me." Ren immediately clapped his hands to release a dark light; he circled the floor to make it float around him to reveal his true form: Reala.

"Over something like this?" Nicholas asked, "Isn't this an overreaction?"

Reala drill dashed toward Nicholas, but Nicholas dodged just on time.

"Fine," said Nicholas, he clapped his hands to summon a purple light, he circled it around him then released it around himself to reveal his true form: NiGHTS.

They both flew outside; they flew all the way to above the buildings. Reala used his powers to create a giant star above him. A bunch of ball fell down from the star; then they began to fight.

Two girls looked up at the two nigthmarens, "what are they doing?"

That was when Pammy had a good idea, she ran outside to talk to them "they come from Magon, the store right here," she pointed to the store.

As more people saw NiGHTS and Reala fight, the others began to advertize the store.

NiGHTS began to worry about his vitory, Reala kept on dodging the balls that he kept on throwing at him, and he only had two that actually hit Reala. NiGHTS threw another ball, but he accidentally threw it upwards, then hit himself, "Ugg." NiGHTS turned back into Nicholas then fell, but Reala caught him on time.

Reala flew down to Will and Helen; he dropped Nicholas to the ground. "That'll teach him."

"I really didn't see the point of that," said Will.

Helen nodded her head with agreement, "yeah, it seemed to be a fight over nothing."

"I didn't ask you children," Reala growled at them, "just take the kid."

Nicholas had woken up from the fight, "I…lost?"

"Yes you did," Reala said, "now, a deal is a deal…stop making fun of me."

"Fine," Nicholas rolled his eyes, "if that's all you want. At least it wasn't a fight to see if I would come back to Wizeman or anything like that."

Reala flew to the store to transform back into a human, only to discover that it was crowded.

Pammy gave some change to a customer, then she waved to Reala, "Hey, you can transform in the back room."

* * *

At closing time, Pammy had to broom once again, she swept down the store, as she overheard a conversation with Ren and Sadie.

"Since you helped the shop's business, I think I will give you the Artificial Ideya early," Sadie said, she took out the blue stone, and then handed it to Ren, "but if you ever shoplift here again, I will call the police."

"Fine," Ren nodded his head, "after that experience, I may never step my foot into this store again." Ren grinned as he placed a Starbuck's bag onto the counter, "by the way Pammy, I went back to the coffee shop to pick up the sugar packets."

Pammy looked at Ren confused, "sugar packets, what for?"

"Your coffee that I gave you earlier," Ren answered, "you said that it was too bitter."

That was when Pammy began to laugh, "I threw that out hours ago it would be cold by now."

Ren just gave Pammy a look as Pammy smiled nervously. Ren had spoken out, "you humans are so wasteful."

"We are," said Pammy, "but the sugar packets may come to use." She grabbed the Starbucks bag, "thank you." She walked out of the store, and then she looked at Ren, "are you coming with?"

"Yeah," Ren walked besides her, with his blue Ideya. Ren felt good about his victory, and that soon he will be gone from this wretched planet, and Pammy.


	8. Actuality 8: Cheat

NiGHTS: Back to Earth

Actuality 8

Madeline looked through the mail for the day, when she saw the school's newspaper. "Helen," she called out, "would you like to see the school's newspaper?"

Helen was on her laptop while Nicholas was watching a movie. Helen's ears perked up when her mother called out to her. "Sure," she called back to her mother. Helen put her laptop down then asked Nicholas, "Will you watch this?"

Nicholas' eyes were glued to the television, "sure…." He said without much effort.

Helen walked over to the kitchen to grab the newsletter. She looked through the newsletter as she walked back to the television. "Hmm, looks like there's a series of games happening at my school," Helen had announced to Nicholas.

"Wouldn't it be cool if one of the prizes was a white or yellow Artificial Ideya?" Nicholas asked "it would be too much of a coincidence, but awesome."

"Um, there are prizes," Helen said, she looked through the list, "hey, there's a yellow Artificial Ideya for the school's poker tournament."

"The Ideya of Hope," Nicholas exclaimed, "I sure hope we win this, I mean, I always lose at this game."

Helen giggled a little, "Is that because you always play against Jackle?"

"Well, he is good," Nicholas observed as he rubbed his chin, "hey, maybe your classmates are worse than Jackle."

"I don't know," Helen shrugged, "I sure hope so." She began to rapidly type on her laptop.

"What are you doing on your computer there Helen?" Nicholas asked, with his eyes no long glued to the television, but to Helen's computer screen.

"I'm sending an Email to everyone about the tournament," said Helen, "if everyone enters the tournament, then it would higher our chances to win."

"Just like with the pageant," Nicholas exclaimed, "only that Will and Devin didn't help at all."

"Yeah, but I'm sure they will this time," said Helen.

xXx

The red and black nightmaren had other ideas from Helen and Nicholas. Will, Ren, Pammy, Joy, Devin and Bridget met at Helen's house to talk about the plan. "No, we need some people to watch the game. They will give us signs so we know if our opponents have good or bad hands."

"Ren, that's cheating," Will told Ren, "and I didn't think your shoplifting before did much good either."

"Stop being too moral mister," Ren had spoken to the dreamer, "Poker is a game of luck, so there are high chances that we won't get this Ideya. So we have to put skill into this."

"You probably got this idea from Jackle," Nicholas said, "It is unfortunate that Jackle isn't here, so we should at least try his strategy."

"Seriously Nicholas?" Helen asked, "You're actually siding with Ren?"

"Yeah, I want to get back to the Dream World as much as he does" said Nicholas, "so why not cheat our way there?"

"Wow, Nicholas, I'm surprised," Will said, but began to organize who will do what "okay who will stay out to give the players signs?"

"We need one watcher per player," said Ren, "but we need the good players."

"Well, I have a deck of cards;" said Helen, "let's see who will be playing by who is better at this game."

"Excuse me," said Bridget, "but how do you play poker?"

Ren slapped his forehead then rubbed his eyebrows with annoyance, "you mean, you don't know how to play poker?"

"I know War and Go Fish, but never Poker," said Bridget, "but can you teach me?"

"Fine…" said Ren, "we'll show you."

xXx

Everyone dropped their cards in amazement as they looked at Bridget's hand.

"What?" Bridget asked them all with full confusion.

"A full house, of two kings and three Jacks, is good Bridget," Devin explained to his sister, "That was the third game you've won in a row, I don't know if it's beginner's luck or something…but you're playing in the tournament."

"Yay," Bridget exclaimed, "I'm better than all of you!"

"It's nothing to boast about," Ren grumble, "Jackle is still better."

"Well, who else should play?" Helen asked, "Nicholas and Pammy had bad hands all three games…so they can watch and give signs."

"Yeah, I am pretty bad at this game," Nicholas laughed.

"Fine," said Pammy, "I can judge the hands very well."

"Well," Joy asked, "who else should watch the other players?"

"Not you," Devin told Joy, "you're actually okay at this game, how about me? I find myself awful at this game."

"Then so far there's Ren, Bridget, Will, Joy and I," Helen explained, "I guess we will play one more game? One with the worst hand doesn't get to play.

xXx

It ended up being Will that didn't get to play. He also wasn't that disappointed, he had found the game boring anyway, and didn't want to play a whole tournament, yet alone play the game a few times.

The day of the tournament had arrived; the football field was filled with tables with card decks on them. The group was greeted by a man with blue hair and blue eyes. "Well, feeling encouraged to gamble here today Will?"

"Not really Mr. Edwards," Will smiled humorously, "I'm just encouraging my friends to gamble."

Nicholas looked at this, "Mr. Edwards," he thought that it was enough of a coincidence to meet Claris, but also Elliot? He had to make sure, "your first name doesn't happen to be Elliot, does it?"

"Why…yes, it is Elliot," Elliot looked at Nicholas confused, "how did you know?"

"Well, let's just say I've seen you in a dream," Nicholas smiled, "so, where do we sign in?"

"Wait," Elliot said, "you're NiGHTS, aren't you?"

"Yes," Nicholas said, probably was too obvious about his clues, "you guessed right."

"Well, actually, Claris told me," Elliot laughed, "We haven't talked to each other in five years. Then one day she just called me and told me that you and Reala were on this planet. It was hard to believe but I see you two here and now."

"Well, it's to be expected that we're here, the prize is an Artificial Ideya," Ren told the boy who had defeated him 15 years ago, "I…I mean we need it to get back to the Dream World."

"Well, good luck," said Elliot, "you will really need it."

When they walked to the table, Nicholas asked Will, "How do you know Elliot?"

"He's the sports coach," Will said, "he is also the gym teacher at this school."

"And I guess he's not with Claris anymore, last time we've met they were together," Nicholas' eyes fell.

"Well, as my sister always says, 'relationship's don't last long for the young,'" Helen tried to brighten Nicholas up.

"I guess you're right," Nicholas smiled at Helen, "well, let's get this game over with!"

xXx

The rules of the tournament were quite simple: The one with the most poker chips wins. Disqualification came when a player had no chips. Ren looked at each player at his table, and then looked at his hands; it was pretty decent, since he had two aces. Then he looked at Pammy who nodded her head as she walked around the table. He took out three of his cards, he was in luck; he had gotten another two aces. He knew to bet high. Pammy gave him a smile, she nodded her head.

Joy wasn't doing as well. Nicholas shook his head, to sign that the hands were better than hers. She couldn't get a single match of the cards. She had folded many, many times.

"This is my first poker tournament, so go easy on me," said Bridget. She and Devin knew it was true, but she didn't have to say, "Go easy on me." She had beaten many people out of having no more chips; it wasn't funny, except in Bridget's eyes, she actually cracked up every time someone had no chips left. It really upset the other players; even Devin told Bridget many times that it wasn't a good idea. She didn't listen to her older brother, she just played.

Helen thought she was doing well, but Will kept on signaling her that the hands of her opponents were better. So she didn't take any risks. She would either bet low, or if her opponents bet too high, she would fold. Luck was not on her side that day.

xXx

Without his cards Jackle was as bored as could be. He talked to many nightmarens for such an extended period of time that they had gotten very annoyed at him. In which Jackle didn't care about, until Gillwing almost ate him. So instead of annoying the other Nightmarens, Jackle decided to tune up the Waking Watcher. He tuned it to Reala, and what he saw distressed him. It was Ren playing in a poker tournament, which was Jackle's favorite game.

This had angered Jackle so much that he flew right over to Wizeman, "you better give me my cards back or else!"

"I am almost finished with giving your deck its power," the Nightmare God had told Jackle, "at dusk I will give you back your deck."

xXx

There was a flaw with Ren's plan was that all four of the players were the very last of the tournament. Yet it wasn't exactly a flaw because they were going to win what they came for. Ren looked at his hand then said, "I bet everything."

Joy was about to say, "fold," but Ren stopped her with a look. Joy had suddenly known to not fold, if she needed to get this done quickly, so she had to act like she had a good hand. She pushed her remaining chips into the pile also.

Bridget grinned as she also put all of her chips into the pile. She never did keep a good poker face at all. Neither did she even know about poker faces.

Since the rules of the game said that everyone had to bet the same amount of chips, Helen also put in her full pile.

"Okay," Ren said, "Full house," he put out two Queens along with three twos.

"I have nothing," Joy said, she put up her hands.

"Um, well, I do have two threes," Helen said, "but Ren beats me on that."

Bridget began to crack up, "I beat you all, I have a Royal Flush," she showed her cards, and it was indeed a Royal Flush.

"How did you?" Reala stopped himself. This girl's luck was just amazing. Ren shook his head, "I guess you win."

"Yay," Bridget cheered, "I win! I'm so much better at this game than any of you." She began to rapidly laugh.

That was when Ren began to grumble, "Oh my Wizeman, we're a team; it doesn't really matter!"

"You've seriously said, 'Oh my Wizeman?'" Nicholas laughed, "Well, we better retrieve the prize."

Before Ren could say something about his 'oh my Wizeman' comment, Bridget said, "Okay!" She got up from her seat to ask Elliot for the prize.

"Looks like you have a talent there missy," Elliot told Bridget, "You're way better at Poker than at volleyball."

"Well, sports aren't my forte Mr. Edwards," Bridget said then took the yellow artificial Ideya from him, "but I may admit, I am better at Poker than at volleyball."

"Hey, Bridget," Helen called out, she took the other three of the other artificial Ideya from her bag, "can you give it to me?"

"Sure thing," said Bridget. She handed the stone to Helen.

"By the way, I've noticed that you guys cheated," Elliot whispered to Bridget, "but this Artifical Ideya is too important to you, so I won't tell anyone."

"Thank you Mr. Edwards," Bridget whispered back.

xXx

Joy waved goodbye to the group as the stopped at the train station. After everyone turned to turnstiles, Ren knew that this was his opportunity. He watched to see if no one was looking…if seemed as though everyone was embarked in conversation. Helen put her bag on the ground as they waited for the train. Ren immediately took the four Artificial Ideya, and then put it in his deep pockets. He was glad that no one noticed him; his plan was going smoothly.

xXx

Pammy woke up to the sound of the opening of her door, it was Reala. She wasn't very tired, which was why she sat up from her bed, "Reala? Are you okay? What's up?"

Reala took a deep breath, "Well, Pammy, I've been thinking…that, maybe I was wrong about what I did three years ago."

Pammy was confused, she knew very well about what happened three years ago; she was still upset about what came to be between both of them. It was just that she thought that Reala would never say that he was sorry. "Are you serious? You're actually sorry about this?"

"I am," Reala bowed his head with full grief, "will you forgive me?"

"Well….yeah," Pammy immediately said, with no second thought about her forgiveness.

Reala grabbed onto Pammy's hand then pulled her out of bed. "I even wondered why I was so immoral then, you are very beautiful."

Pammy blushed, she never remembered Reala complementing her in that matter before. Her mind was jumping for joy from the complement. A kiss on the check came from Reala's lips, which made Pammy even happier.

Only that Pammy was so dazzled, that she didn't notice that she was sinking into the ground caused by a paraloop.

Reala wrapped his arm around Pammy, which was when she noticed that she was sinking, into a black hole, "Reala, what's happening?"

That was when Reala began to laugh, "You're slowly devouring into Nightmare."

She was about to scream but Reala covered her mouth.

"Shut up, it will only make things worse," Reala hissed, "now be quiet until we get to Nightmare."

Pammy couldn't believe it; Reala just tricked her into having her going to Nightmare. She may not remember it so well, but she knew that it would scare the life out of her. All Pammy thought about was being twelve years old, and just learning that her first love, didn't love her back.

She also thought of NiGHTS saying, "You're that strange visitor that told Reala that you love him." She still had no memory of saying that. She had first met Reala in the Dream World, he probably just thought of her as any other Visitor…even if she did express her love for him. It was just all a trick, Reala wasn't sorry at all. He just wanted her for his own selfish desires, again.


	9. Actuality 9: Ketchup

NiGHTS: Back to Earth

Actuality 9

It was early morning when a knock came to the door. Helen was just out of the shower, so she called to Nicholas, "can you get that?"

Nicholas opened the door to see a fourteen year old boy with short spiked red hair and blue eyes. He wore a black trench coat with baggy black jeans and a white shirt. "Where is Reala?" He asked.

"J-Jackle?" Nicholas asked, "how did-how did you get here?"

"Oh, that doesn't matter," Jackle shook his head, then asked the same question again "where's Reala?"

Helen came downstairs with her hair still wet, "what's going…on?" She fell silent; she looked at Jackle strait into his bright blue eyes. Her next action was the shut the door right on Jackle's face.

"Helen, what was that for?" Nicholas asked, and then he realized Helen's enraged feelings towards Jackle. Since Jackle forced Helen to date him three years ago, Helen had developed a great hatred for the nightmaren.

Jackle opened the door, "Helen, sweetie, why are you so harsh to your former lover?"

"I'm not your girlfriend anymore Jackle," Helen rubbed her temples, "now, why are you here?"

"I was only looking for Reala my dear Helen," Jackle explained. He had a quest to fulfill, and he wanted to get back to the Dream World as soon as possible. So he was hasty about his answers.

"Well, he's not here," said the annoyed Helen, "he lives with Pammy."

"Who?" Jackle asked, without the memory of who Pammy was.

Helen rolled her eyes, "Reala's ex-girlfriend," she said, with full hope that Jackle would recognize her that way.

"Oh, okay," Jackle said. He soon trailed off to Pammy's.

* * *

Yet the only problem was: Jackle had no clue where Pammy lived. He walked a few steps on the sidewalk as he looked through his card deck. They didn't seem much different from before only with the power to go through different worlds. That was when he bumped into a young girl. She had brown hair braided into pigtails, and blue eyes. She looked almost too familiar to Jackle, but can't put his nose to it. After he looked at the girl, he looked down, "m-my cards!" All of his cards were all over the side walk.

The girl laughed playfully, and then offered, "Want to play 52 Pickup?"

A huge smile went on Jackle's face; this was the first time someone actually agreed to play that "game" with him. Most of the other Nightmarens just leave whenever he would throw his cards to the ground. "Sure thing," Jackle said.

After the gathering of the cards, the girl asked Jackle, "What's your name? Mine is Bridget."

"Bridget?" Jackle came to notice, "That's a very strange name."

"Well then, we'll see whose stranger, what's yours?" Bridget asked again.

"I am Jackle, the most feared Nightmaren of them all," Jackle had fully announced. Jackle was never good at hiding his identity, neither did he notice that he just gave away that he was as Nightmaren.

"You're a Nightmaren huh?" Bridget wasn't surprised since she had seen many strange things in this world. "Are you looking for NiGHTS and Reala?"

"Just Reala," said Jackle, he didn't even wonder how she even knew their names, "I know that he lives with someone named Pammy but I don't know where she lives."

"I know Pammy," said Bridget, "she's my brother's girlfriend. Let me show you!"

Jackle followed the girl who skipped down the street. He looked at her backpack, which had a strange design with many red and purple swirls on it. The backpack was almost hypnotizing. Suddenly, Bridget had stopped. Jackle bumped into her back.

"We're here," she sang to Jackle, she knocked on the door to wait for an answer.

Tina, Pammy's mother, opened the door, "yes?" She looked very frightened of something.

"We're looking for Ren," Bridget explained, "his friend Jackle here needs to see him."

That was when Tina began to burst out crying, "I just don't know." The tears came down fast and huge, like a rainstorm.

Bridget made a gulp in her thought, she had never seen Pammy's mother become hysterical before. She was mostly calm, even in the worst of situations. "What happened?"

"Pammy and Ren left without a trace," Tina explained, "with no note, no anything! I didn't know that I was being a horrible guardian for them both. I never yelled at them or anything. I just don't know what went wrong. They just ran away."

"What?" Jackle cried, "So Reala isn't here?"

"Who's Reala?" Tina asked.

"He means Ren," Bridget explained.

"Yes, he is not here," Tina confirmed "we have contacted the police and John is helping looking for both of them."

"Good to know," said Bridget. She left along with Jackle.

* * *

Helen looked into her purse where she didn't find the four Artificial Ideya. She poured everything in her purse onto her bed, but still not an Artificial Ideya to be found.

Nicholas came into Helen's room, he saw Helen drastically looking around her stuff, "what's wrong?"

"I can't find the Ideya anywhere," Helen yelled out to Nicholas, "they've disappeared."

That was when the phone rang. Helen looked at the caller ID, it was May. She had to take it since it was a long distance call. Helen picked up the phone, "Hello?"

"Helen!" May cried, "I'm so glad you answered, I've heard from Mum that Nicholas is back. What happened? I thought he was back in the Dream World?"

"He was, for three years. Reala had a pair of boots that can go through dimensions," Helen explained, "but they were fighting and the Ideya that powered the boots broke. So we have to look for Artificial Ideya to…."

"Oh, I have an Artificial Ideya!" May yelled out in full amazement, "It's in my room, in the box with the ballerina in it."

"Hey Nicholas," Helen told him, "can you look in May's room for a white box, there's a White Artificial Ideya in there."

Nicholas ran out of Helen's room, "Sure thing."

When Nicholas had left, May had other news, "I got an acting job."

"Really?" Helen was very surprised, she knew that May was a good actress, but getting an acting job was very difficult for her, all of her jobs so far were in the food industry, "where?"

"At an Independent stage production," May said, "The name of the play is…."

Nicholas came back with a disappointed look on his face. He couldn't believe it, "it's not there."

"Shoot," May whispered, "I knew it was there, I must have displaced it."

"Or perhaps," Helen suggested, "Ren took it."

"So Ren took the other four Artificial Ideya," Nicholas growled under his breath, "I should have known."

That was when Jackle came into Helen's room screaming, "He's gone, Reala is gone!"

"Why would you trust Reala for one second?" May asked as she recognized the drama going on, so she asked, "Well, can you bring the phone to Mum?"

"Mum," Helen called out to Madeline, "May is on the phone, can you pick it up?"

"Sure Helen," Madeline called back from the kitchen, she picked up the phone, and then Helen hung up.

Nicholas was already trying to clam Jackle down, "Okay Jackle, take deep breaths, what happened?"

Deep breaths were took from Jackle, with tears still down his eyes, he explained, "T-this girl, Bridget, she showed me to that Pammy girl's house…and her parents said that both Reala and Pammy were gone."

"What?" Helen scream, "Both Ren and Pammy?"

"Yeah, they just disappeared," Jackle said.

"Ugg," Helen massaged her brows, "maybe letting Ren live with Pammy wasn't a good idea."

That was when Bridget ran into Helen's room, "Jackle, what's wrong?"

"Well, it was Pammy's idea," Nicholas came to observe, then he saw Bridget, "Oh, hey Bridget."

"It doesn't matter," said Helen, "Both Pammy and Reala are in the Dream World, and we need to find out how to get there ourselves."

That was when Jackle disappeared.

"Bridget?" Helen asked, "can you retrieve Jackle?"

* * *

How scared Pammy was, was very indescribable. Both Reala and Pammy were in complete darkness, she walked with him, not saying a word, bitter about everything that happened. She wondered how her parents and friends would feel when they find out that she was missing. She never ran away from home before, and neither had she ever missed curfew. She had no idea how her parents would react. All hoped was that she would someday come back to the Waking World.

"You know," Reala had finally spoken up, "we could get there much faster if we Dualized."

"D-Dualize?" Pammy asked, she very well knew what it was, from the little that she remembered about the Dream World. "You can do that?"

"My powers match up to NiGHTS'," Reala explained, "so I have every power that NiGHTS has, so yes, I can Dualize." Reala took out his hand, "how about it?" Reala took out his hand to show that he was ready.

Pammy looked at her own hand, she wasn't sure if she should do this. She trusted NiGHTS when she Dualized with him. She had trusted Reala many times, but at that moment: she didn't trust him at all since he had tricked her the night before.

"Stop being so hesitant," Reala scolded to the girl, he put his hand to hers then they fused together.

"You're so impatient Reala," Pammy scolded back to Reala, "don't you ever take any consideration about how I feel?"

Reala ignored Pammy's comment, he changed the subject "So you only have two Ideya?"

Pammy rolled her eyes, Reala was avoiding as much as he could of what he had just did to her, "Yeah, Courage and Purity."

Reala laughed, "That's where most Visitors give up on their Ideya quest."

"Well, there was a reason why I gave up," Pammy came back to the subject she needed to address, "you didn't return my love for you."

"You don't even remember telling me that you loved me the first time," Reala told Pammy, "so how would you know that was the reason why you gave up on your Ideya Quest?"

"I don't know," Pammy had spoken back, "it's just a gut feeling." Pammy paused for a second; she actually wasn't sure why she gave up on her Ideya. "Where are we going anyway?"

"Well, we are already in Nightmare, but there's a castle at the middle of it." Reala began to explain, "Nightmare wasn't always a castle; it's just that so any Visitors thought of Nightmare as one, that it became one."

Pammy nodded her head; she had let Reala navigate since she knew his way around. She closed her eyes to feel the breeze, but immediately opened them because she felt no breeze. She had a feeling that she would remember Nightmare that time.

Reala had found the dark and creepy castle that was in Nightmare, where he flew inside of. Immediately Reala went over to Wizeman's room. He bowed to his master. "Wizeman, I am back from the World of the Visitors."

"And I suppose that Jackle is with you," Wizeman responded.

"Jackle?" Reala was confused "I may ask, why I would have Jackle with me?"

"He sent you back to Nightmare," Wizeman explained, "I gave him the power to go to the Waking World to retrieve you."

"Well, I came back myself," Reala told Wizeman, "using the power of what Visitors call, 'Artificial Ideya.'"

That was when Wizeman felt a presence, "Reala are you dualized with someone."

That was when Reala pushed Pammy out of himself.

She yelped from falling to the ground. She looked up at Wizeman, "um…hi?"

"So you've brought Pamela to the Dream World?" Wizeman asked, "Why?"

"Well, the portal doesn't appear when I paraloop nothing, so I had to do it to someone," Reala explained, "Pammy was the most tolerable person in the Waking World so, I chose her."

"As long as it wasn't NiGHTS that you brought along," Wizeman said, "you may leave."

Reala bowed down to Wizeman, then left. Pammy looked at the dark room, that Wizeman stood in; it seemed, kind of boring. Pammy wondered what he did all of the time, perhaps he schemed?

Reala grabbed onto Pammy's arm, "let's go!" He dragged her out of the room.

Pammy pulled herself away from Reala's grasp as she glared at him, "Bring me back to the Waking World, now!"

Reala's face met Pammy's then sinfully grinned, "Who says that I'm going to do that?"

* * *

Jackle took a look at the refrigerator of the Cartwright residence. He eyed a bottle of ketchup, tall and red and still full of that red glop, so he took it out. Just then he began to squeeze it all over himself. The feeling of the ketchup all over his body was an odd feeling, yet then again having a body was also an odd feeling.

That was when Bridget came into the kitchen, "Hey, Jackle, Helen and NiGHTS need to…." She looked up at Jackle to see the ketchup, "are you a hotdog or something?"

"Nah," Jackle shook his head, "I just like the feeling of red stuff all over me."

"Me too actually," Bridget agreed, "I once accidentally cut my finger, and so much of this red stuff came out of it, I couldn't believe that so much of it can come out of one small finger."

* * *

Helen and Nicholas sat on Helen's bed, bored, as they waited for Bridget to come back with Jackle.

When Bridget came to the room, she was without Jackle. She began with a, "remember that favor you owe me from giving you that Artificial Ideya?"

"Is now the best time?" Helen asked, "Pammy could be scared senseless."

"No, let's hear Bridget's request," said Nicholas, "then we will get Jackle ourselves."

"Actually," Bridge shyly told the two, "it's about Jackle."

"What? Now he can't leave you alone?" Helen asked, "Now that's something we can't…."

"No," Bridget shook her head, "I actually take a strong liking to Jackle."

That was when Helen began to laugh, this was just too funny for her, "You mean like a crush?"

Bridget pouted, "What? Is something funny about that?"

"Well, let's just say that Jackle isn't good with relationships," Nicholas explained to the girl, "He annoys the heck out of you, and won't let you break up with him."

"That's only the situation with Helen," Bridget came to consideration, "also, I actually like him."

Helen sighed, she guessed Bridget was right, "so what do you want us to do about it?"

"Well, I don't know," Bridget shrugged, "say something about my interest in him."

"Well, if that's the favor we owe you, we should try the best as we can," Nicholas expressed, "now where is Jackle?"

"He's spraying ketchup all over himself in the kitchen," Bridget explained to the two, "yet I don't seem to understand why you need him so much."

Nicholas got up to answer that, "well, he probably has a way back to the Dream World, so he could send us there to save Pammy."

"You know," Birdget began to observe "if Pammy's physical body is in the Dream World, then what happens when she sleeps?"

"Does it really matter Bridget?" Helen asked in rage, "Pammy is in danger, and we are the only ones to help her."

"Fine, fine," said Bridget, "I'll get Jackle, and this time, I'll take the ketchup away from him."

As Bridget left the room, Helen just told herself, "Jackle is such a waste of ketchup."


	10. Actuality 10: Love?

AN: Hey, sorry for the delay. I am also sorry about the dismal length of the story also. I really have no excuse besides writer's block.

NiGHTS: Back to Earth

Actuality 10

Helen had waited for way too long; she came down to the kitchen, and then took the ketchup away from Jackle. "You've had it long enough."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Jackle didn't seem too upset about it, "but you will never guess why I had it," Jackle grimly told Helen, then grinned "what'cha want?"

"You know very well what we want," said Helen, "for NiGHTS to go back to the Dream World, and Pammy back in our world."

"And how would you know that Pammy is in the Dream World?" Jackle asked, "How do you know if she's missing somewhere else with Reala?"

Helen rolled her eyes, at least Jackle stopped with the pet names, "And where would you suggest Reala and Pammy would be?"

Jackle only shrugged, "somewhere in this world, how would they even get to the Dream World? Reala's shoes broke, remember?"

That was when Nicholas and Bridget came into the kitchen, "I am willing to explain that," said Bridget, "in this world, Visitors use something called Artificial Ideya to replace regular Ideya when taken from Nightmaren."

Nicholas nodded his head, "yes, and they have the same power are regular Ideya. We have collected four of the Artificial Ideya, only that Reala had the fifth. He probably stole the rest from Helen, but took Pammy along with."

"And how would you know?" Jackle asked.

"The clues leaded up to Pammy and Reala being in the Dream World," Helen told Jackle, "and you had to get to the Waking World somehow, so you also have a way back."

"Why are you assuming these things?" Jackle cried out, "I don't have a way back, seriously."

Nicholas knew that wasn't the truth. He just knew Jackle way too hard to believe that there wasn't a way to the Dream World. Nicholas just gave Jackle a glare, to give him a notice that Nicholas knew what he was up to.

* * *

Pammy walked around the castle all alone. She was glad to get away from Reala for once. It seemed like at that moment, and for once: she was over Reala. Yet she wondered why Reala refused to let her back to the Waking World. Could it be that…?

"And you must be that Pammy girl Reala is always watching in that crystal ball thing," said what seemed to be a giant spider.

Pammy screamed for a moment, frightened of what she had seen, only to remember: three years ago, that spider threw giant balls of web at her. It wasn't a pleasant memory, although familiar to Pammy. Then she remembered that the spider reminded her that Reala was stalking her, it had always irritated her since she found out about the matter, "Why is that your business?"

The spider snorted, "Geeze, I was only wondering. I mean, Reala and Jackle are the only two nightmaren here who has the power to go through worlds, it's not like either of them would send you back."

That was when Pammy became silent; she looked down, "It baffles me why he won't send me back."

Laughter came to the spider, "You're so naïve, very naïve," the spider began to pass by Pammy.

Pammy tried to stop the giant spider from walking away, but all failed, "What does she mean, 'Naïve?'"

There was full awareness in Pammy's head that Jackle wasn't there, so there was only one way to get back to the Waking World: Convince Reala otherwise. It was easier said than done. Pammy looked at the red and black checkered room. Somehow she knew that it was Reala's. Maybe it was because of the colors. Reala seemed to like black and red a lot; they seemed to be his signature colors. She walked into the room to see Reala sitting on his throne. He looked up at the ceiling; he hadn't even noticed the Visitor.

Pammy just stood there, not knowing what to say, or how to say it. She knew she had to convince him somehow to get her back to the Waking World.

That was Reala's eyes met to Pammy, which had really intimidated her.

"What?" Reala asked, "Do you need something?"

"Yes," Pammy proudly announced, "I want you to…."

"If it has anything to do with the Waking World then no…" Reala was straight on his answer, and it seemed as though he wasn't going to change his mind.

This had really made Pammy mad. She was confused the first time he declined, but the second time really ticked her off, "and why are you imprisoning in this horror to humans?"

That had just made Reala pause. He knew the reason, it was just the way of putting it, "I just, want you to be around; that's all, now leave, I'm pondering."

Pammy's feet stayed on the ground, which was amazingly clean, since Nightmaren didn't walk that often. She thought about it, maybe it was more than just, "needing someone to paraloop." He could paraloop an object for the whole thing to work. Then she thought that, maybe, just maybe, Reala actually does love her. Maybe those words he said before he paralooped her were actually true.

"What are you doing?" Reala looked at Pammy once again, "I said, leave!"

Pammy's eyes grew dark, "it had to develop over the years, and you had to do many terrible things to me. You had to use me and stalk me, but what you had said our last seconds in the Waking World was true."

Fear came to Reala; he didn't want Pammy to be aware of him actually having feelings, for a Visitor.

"You actually lo…."

Reala swooped down from his throne to put his hand over her mouth, he screeched out, "don't you dare!" A sharp feeling came to Reala's hand, "ah!" he screamed as he saw Pammy's mouth in Reala's hand. He quickly pulled away.

"I just can't believe you," Pammy began to say, "I have loved you with all of my heart, and cared for you…and it ended up that you have only used me for your own needs? That is low, as low as the pits of the Underworld. I am defiled now; you have picked out every emotion of happiness out of me. There is no one word to describe my feelings. You don't even understand!"

Reala knew those words well, he had memorized every piece of this…it was Joy's monologue.

"But now, since I know that the pieces of your return have come together," Pammy had added onto the monologue, with water in her eyes, "I think…I still love you, despite of what you've done."

* * *

The four were back in Helen's room; everyone was silent when Helen asked "well?"

Bridget stole Jackle's cards then took a look at them, "so, let me guess, your power is throwing cards?"

"Yeah, what about it?" Jackle asked, "I'm very deadly with my card throwing."

"You can say that again," said Nicholas.

"Oh," Bridget nodded her head, she seemed to get the entire thing, "so you're a card ninja?!"

Helen began to crack up, "oh my gosh, that is so true!" Helen hadn't felt positive about Jackle before, at least not enough to laugh at him.

Jackle just smiled, it wasn't as grim as his infamous Nightmaren smile, but still quite creepy, "you can say that I'm some kind of ninja."

"But let's get back to business," said Helen, then she glared at Jackle, as she knew what he would say after her next sentence, "As the rest of us knows, Pammy is trapped in the Dream World."

"What?" Jackle asked in response to Helen's glare, what he said wasn't what she expected at all "How would ~I~ ever doubt that Reala and his girlfriend is in the Dream World?"

"Um, you did," Helen pointed out, "quite recently you've questioned if Pammy and Reala were actually in the Dream World."

A baffled face appeared on Jackle, "what? Of course I agree that Pammy and Reala are in the Dream World, where else would they be?"

"Okay then," Helen was glad that Jackle began to agree, "I guess we shall start our rescue mission!"

That was when there was a knock on the door. Helen went downstairs to open it to see Devin, "Hey, have you seen Pammy…or Bridget in that matter?"

Helen shook her head, "haven't you heard that both Pammy and Reala went missing."

"Yeah, I know," said Devin, "My first thought was that they were here at your house."

Helen didn't want to spurt out the news to Devin, even though he did deserve to know the truth, it was just the cold hard truth, "um, let's just say that Pammy's physical body is in the Dream World…Reala forced her to come with him after he stole my Artificial Ideya."

Devin looked down, "well, there's no way to tell her parents that…" then he looked up, "and I suppose there is no way for NiGHTS to get to the Dream World?"

That was when the truth got warmer, "no, Bridget found another nightmaren named Jackle here in the Waking World. He might be able to help us get to the Dream World, he's with Bridget and Nicholas now."

"Awesome," Devin perked up then smiled, "then we can rescue Pammy ourselves!" Then Devin finally asked, "are there any complications to this?"

* * *

Right after Helen had exit the room, Jackle turned himself back into a Nightmaren.

"Wow, why are you turned back into a Nightmaren?" Bridget immediately asked, thinking that he looked amazing in his form.

Jackle didn't answer Bridget's question, he threw one of his cards which created a portal to the Dream World.

He was about to go in, when Bridget grabbed onto his where his shoulder should be, "Wait, Jackle, no!"

Jackle didn't listen to Bridget at all, he kept on flying, only Bridget didn't lose her grip, and she was injected to the portal as well as Jackle.

The immediate reaction of Nicholas was to run as fast as he could into the portal before it closed. The last thing Nicholas wanted was for more Visitors to have their physical bodies in the Dream World. The last thing that Nicholas wanted did indeed happen, another Visitor in the Dream World. He had guessed that there were two Visitors to rescue.

When Devin and Helen came to her room, they had found the trio gone. All they had seen left was Bridget's backpack and the last bit of the portal, which closed.

"I guess there is a complication," Helen bit her lip, "they left without us."

"What?" Devin whispered in anger, "first, the Nightmaren have taken my girlfriend, now my sister? What do they have against me?"

"They have nothing against you," said Helen, "it's just…a coincidence."

"Who is this Jackle?" Devin cried out in rage.

"Well," Helen began to explain, "He's a Nightmaren, with a big playing card obsession, a strange individual; he has the power to throw cards."

"Is he evil at all?" Devin asked.

"Don't get me started," Helen, rolled her eyes "he's evil, in an annoying kind of way." Helen had always thought of Devin as a calm person. He was so angry, this was the first time Helen had seen him that way. There was nothing neither she nor Devin could do, except wait.


	11. Actuality 11: Departure

NiGHTS: Back to Earth

Actuality 11

A ten year old girl ran as fast as she could, her brown eyes were filled with clear watered tears, her orange hair was tied up into a bun, getting looser by the second. She ran all the way to the edge of the Dream Gate where the Dark Ocean was. "If he's not going to love me, then so be it!"

That was when NiGHTS came flying as quickly as he could. "Wait, Pammy no! He's just a…" NiGHTS hesitated for a moment, he knew that he would discriminate himself by saying it, "just a Nightmaren."

"It doesn't matter what he is," the orange headed Visitor cried, "I have a feeling for him that will never be returned!" Her arms spread out like a bird's wings, and she fell down to the Dark Ocean.

NiGHTS flew down to the Dark Ocean to save her. He grabbed her just right on time, or so he thought.

The girl's bun fell off, where the hair touched the black mist in the Dark Ocean, "Wow, why am I in the Dark Ocean?" She asked, with no memory of why she tried to jump into the forbidden zone.

Slowly, she disappeared, never to come back, or so NiGHTS thought was the case.

* * *

For once, Devin was frantic about what would happen to both his girlfriend and his little sister. He paced around the room as he said, "Oh my goodness, what are we going to do? They might die if their physical bodies are in the Dream World!"

Helen wasn't as frantic as Devin, even if they were trapped in the Dream World. "Well," Helen sighed, "Bridget probably has her cell phone."

Devin stopped pacing, "good idea, then we would know about what is going on in the Dream World." He took out his cell phone and speed dialed Bridget.

That was when they heard some music from Bridget's backpack. Helen dug through the backpack to find Bridget's cell phone. "That was a bad idea."

"What?" Devin was even more angry than he already was, "Bridget would never go anywhere without her backpack!"

Helen wished that Nicholas was there, he was always good at calming others down. It just wasn't Helen's forte. She was just about to panic herself, but since Devin didn't keep his cool, it was Helen's job to keep her own cool.

* * *

"This, place, is, awesome!" Bridget yelled out. They all ended up in Jackle's room in Nightmare, at the castle created by the Visitors' perspective. "Oh my gosh, I've never imagined the Dream World like this!"

NiGHTS was back in his Nightmaren form, it automatically came that way when they entered to portal.

NiGHTS sat on the air as he said to Bridget, "I'm glad you like Nightmare…first Visitor to enjoy it…yet you're not the first to like another Nightmaren."

Jackle had heard what NiGHTS had said, "What do you mean 'like'?"

A chuckle came to NiGHTS, "'like as a little crush."

Bridget blushed with full embarrassment, "NiGHTS, that was way too obvious."

"What?" Jackle was very surprised about the whole situation. He had desired many things such as, cards, Wizeman's world domination, cards, killing NiGHTS, cards, befriending Reala, cards but one of the many things; it was a Visitor as a girlfriend. Although he desired cards more. "Really?" Jackle asked as he quickly flew over to Bridget and held both of her hands.

Bridget blushed, she never had someone she liked touch her hands before.

"Okay, this is just wrong," said NiGHTS, "Jackle, tell me where Reala's room is."

"You forgot where Reala's room is?" Jackle began to laugh, "You've been a traitor for a long time."

"Be quiet Jackle," NiGHTS cried, "just show me to Reala's room."

"Fine," Jackle cried, "then I'll show you where Reala's throne room is!"

* * *

Pammy sat on Reala's throne, it was rock hard, and not comfortable at all, although she had been standing for a while, so it was good to sit for once.

Reala floated by her side, "at least you finally understand why I sent you here."

"Yeah," Pammy sighed, "but why did you hide it all of that time?"

That was the time for Reala to be truthful for once, "well, this is the first time…a Nightmaren and a Visitor was together in that matter. It's, kind of… embarrassing."

"Wait a second," Pammy realized, "what about Helen and Jackle?"

"They don't count," Reala went closer to Pammy, "we do."

"Yeah, I wonder about Jackle right now," Pammy contemplated, "he doesn't like the Waking World that much, so it will probably be chaos for him."

* * *

"So, Jackle," Bridget began to talk, "what would your favorite card be?"

"The king of hearts of course," Jackle answered her question with his infamous smile, "and yours?"

"Well, the two of spades, no one ever thinks about it, or likes it," was Bridget's answer, "like in Poker as an example."

"I love poker, it's my favorite game," Jackle exclaimed, "I have taught every Nightmaren in Nightmare how to play that game."

NiGHTS just rolled his eyes. He never liked the whole, "Nightmaren/Visitor" relationship. He even remembered when Pammy admitted her love for Reala. NiGHTS had thought Pammy was crazy. She was the only Visitor who had admitted her love to a Nightmaren, besides Bridget of course.

"I played Poker at the school's tournament," said Bridget, "just yesterday too, I'm a quick learner."

"Really?" Jackle asked in surprise, "then we shall have a match then."

"We don't have time for a match," NiGHTS darkly told the two, "we need to get Pammy and send both her and Bridget to the Waking World."

"Aw," Bridget complained, "you mean I met the perfect guy, and I will never see him again?"

This had made NiGHTS feel even darker, "yes, because Nightmaren shouldn't be with Visitors. It had torn Pammy's heart, and—

NiGHTS saw Reala's room, where he saw what he thought he would never see in his eternal life, Reala actually kissing a Visitor. Not in a despiteful way like he did three years ago, but passionately, like he actually was actually in love with her. "Reala, what are you doing?"

"Oh, shoot," Pammy yelled out, "It's NiGHTS, um…I can explain."

"You don't need to explain anything," NiGHTS yelled to Pammy, "it's Reala that needs to explain!"

"I didn't do anything," Reala yelled, "for your information; I'm in love."

NiGHTS was just plain appalled by that comment, "but you penetrated Pammy's heart. How could you just love her after that? How could she love you?"

"It's kind of complicated," Pammy whispered, "I was never really over him, even with a great boyfriend, Devin, larger parts in the school's plays and even great friends…I have always been thinking about Reala. I was clouded with despair all of these years, which was why I was so rude to Reala at first."

"Wow," Bridget put her hands to her heart, "that was deep."

"Well, Reala" NiGHTS sighed, "I can't put you on the spot for this one."

Jackle took out his Waking Watcher, "won't need this anymore," said Jackle, "now it's all mine again."

"Wait," said NiGHTS, "both Bridget and Pammy need to get back to the Waking World."

"What?" asked Jackle, he couldn't believe it, he finally found a girl that liked him for who he was then she had to leave? "No, you can't!" He squeezed onto his waking watcher with anger, so much that it tuned to Devin.

Pammy looked at the Waking Watcher, to see Devin…crying. "It's all over," he cried out, "I'm never going to see Pammy or Bridget ever again."

"Oh my gosh," Pammy whispered, she had been thinking so much about herself that she had completely forgot about Devin's feelings. He seemed worried sick about both her and Bridget. "You know Bridget, NiGHTS is right, we have to go back to our world."

Bridget began to shudder "but…but…"

"We have to go Birdget," Pammy sternly repeated, "we have family and friends back home."

That was when Birdget stopped shuddering and began to cry, "What friends? I never had a friend in my life! Ever since I went to school, people always thought of me as a freak. There was only one point in my life when I didn't feel outcast, which was when I met Jackle. He agrees with me, doesn't stare at me, and I actually thought he was the most compatible person…Nightmaren…for me. I would rather stay here Pammy. You can leave yourself! Just tell my parents and brother, okay?"

"Bridget!" NiGHTS told her sternly, "stop being so selfish. You are maybe an outcast to The Waking World, but I'm an outcast to the Dream World. That doesn't mean I will be staying in the Waking World, even though my friends are in that very world. I just wait for the residences of the Waking World to come to me."

"You're different," Bridget screamed out, "Visitors can come to your world, but Nightmaren can't come to my world."

"Bridget…" NiGHTS sighed, but soon was interrupted by Jackle when he threw a card at NiGHTS, which actually hit NiGHTS. "Watch it!" NiGHTS was about to get back up, when Jackle put his foot onto NiGHTS' head.

"You do not mess with Bridget," Jackle whispered demonically, "If you send her back to her world, you will die!" He was sure about his words. NiGHTS tried to put his head up, but Jackle pressed his foot harder onto NiGHTS' head, "oh, no you don't!"

Pammy wanted to be mature about this, "Okay, I will go back to the Waking World, I will see Reala in my dreams anyway."

"Well, actually," NiGHTS cried out from under Jackle's foot, "you fell partially into the Black Ocean…"

"What do you mean partially?" asked Bridget.

"What do you mean Black Ocean?" asked Pammy.

The amnesia that cursed Pammy was very annoying, but Bridget explained it to her, "the Dark Ocean is at the edge of the Dream Gate, if a Visitor goes in there, it could tear up their soul completely…although, I don't know why NiGHTS meant partially."

"I was so close to saving her," said NiGHTS, "just her hair came into the Ocean."

"Does that even count?" asked Reala, "I doubt it," he stood up, "I will send Pammy back to the Waking World, as long as she visits me every night.

"Sounds good to me," said Pammy, although unsure if she could physically come to The Dream World, she really hoped so.

Reala paralooped Pammy back to the Waking World, she waved as she sank all the way to where she originated.

* * *

A black hole appeared at the middle of Helen's room ceiling where Pammy emerged from. Or at last fell from the ceiling and right onto Helen's bed.

"Pammy?" Helen looked at her confused, she was happy to see her, but it just seemed so random.

"Well," She brushed her skirt and got up, "I'm back." She looked at Devin wet dark blue eyes, which she couldn't bear to see anymore. She knew it was too recent to dump him after getting back together, but she only had him as a boyfriend to attempt to get over Reala.

Devin gave her a hug, "I'm so glad you're back!"

"Um, Devin," Pammy knew it was best to tell him the truth, "Reala and I….well…um…" She couldn't believe she hesitated; this was the worst time to do that, "I was never over Reala."

Devin looked at Pammy with confusion, "you were never over him? But, I thought you were beyond him since the day we met?"

"I thought I was beyond him for three years." Pammy came to admit, "It took me to meet him again to realize that I still loved him. And…well," Pammy was hesitating again, "he actually returns my love this time."

"Oh," was all Devin said. He didn't seem mad at all, just disappointed. "Should, we break up again then?"

"I guess," Pammy told Devin, "I know that it feels like it's a bad idea, but we can still be friends…right?"

"Yeah," said Devin, "we can still be friends."

That was when Helen realized, "Wait, so, no strings attached, you and Reala?"

Pammy nodded her head, "yeah, and we kissed…he was so passionate about it, unlike last time, that kiss tasted quite…spiteful."

"So you think he's a changed maren?" Helen interrogated, she was sure that Reala was probably tricking Pammy again. It was the most logical thing, since Helen didn't trust Reala at all.

Pammy saw right between those words, "you think this is another trick," Pammy cried out, "well, it isn't a trick at all! How could he act shy about the whole situation?"

"Shy?" asked Helen, "you seriously think that Reala is shy?" Helen couldn't believe what Pammy was saying, "remember his good acting skills?!"

"I don't care about his acting skills, because he's not acting at all," Pammy was still yelling.

This was very awkward for Devin, since he wasn't part of the group back in the days when Reala tricked Pammy. He just got up, grabbed Bridget's backpack and left.

"And look at poor Devin," Helen too Devin's action as an example, "he had been so awesome to you, and you dump him for a Nightmaren?"

"What is wrong with Nightmaren?" Pammy asked she never knew that Helen could be so speciesist.

"How about you just leave?" Helen cried out, "because don't consider us friends anymore!"

"Fine," Pammy stomped to the door, "I don't want friends who doubt me anyhow!" It was final; Pammy had to sacrifice two friends for Reala. Reala sure hoped that he was happy about that. At least she could see him in her dreams… maybe.


	12. Actuality 12: Trapped

A/N: Constant writer's block galore!

NiGHTS: Back to Earth

Actuality 12

Pammy now knew how Bridget felt, with her bare feet on the sidewalk. Whenever Pammy looked down at Bridget's feet, she would notice that there were no shoes. When it snowed in Bellbridge, or when she went to school, Bridget always put on some flip flops. Pammy always known that shoes had irritated Bridget. Yet for Pammy, the lack of shoes irritated her.

Pammy went over to her house, she was about to get out her keys when she had noticed that she didn't have them. So she knocked on the door to find her mother when the door opened.

That was when Tina began to cry and hugged Pammy tightly, "I'm so glad you're back."

Pammy nodded her head; she had to make something up; since telling a grownup about the Dream World would be awful. For Helen to tell May was already a stretch, "Ren and I, were about to take a train to his hometown...but I've changed my mind…"

Then Tina became a strict mother, "well you better have decided not to go, we were worried sick!"

Maybe Pammy should have came up with a different story, she knew that she would be grounded, even if coming to Nightmare was against her own will. She knew already that she was grounded for a very long time.

* * *

Bridget now knew how Pammy felt, trapped and confused. At first she thought of the Dream World as totally awesome. At least, it would be awesome if Jackle didn't keep such a short leash on her.

Jackle had set some ground rules for her, "you should not leave my room, unless if I leave, and if I do, you have to be near me at all times."

Bridget sighed then rolled her eyes. She had always thought of Jackle as an insane chaotic Nightmaren, not a Nightmaren of rules.

"My next rule is, don't sigh and roll your eyes at me," Jackle's face went close to Bridgets, "other than that my sweet, it's all good."

Bridget had thought that it was out of Jackle's character to have, "rules" Bridget had guessed that it was all a test of her knowledge of Jackle. She had only just met him, but she knew that he would never set up any rules, especially for being in Nightmare.

Jackle has left the room, and Bridget was all alone. This was her chance to break the rules. She ran as fast as she could out of the door, only to find out that she didn't know where to go. That was when she saw the exit of the castle. So she opened the castle's door and ran out.

* * *

Helen now knew how NiGHTS felt, attacked in a fight between friends. She wanted to contact someone who knew about the Dream World. Of course, she thought of Will. So Helen grabbed her purse and went out the door.

Helen walked out far, to a large field where she found Will practicing with his football game with Ben and James. Helen called out to Will, and Will ran over to her.

"Hey Helen," Will took deep breaths from running so much, "what'cha need?"

"Will?" Helen asked her boyfriend, "we need to talk; it's about the Dream World. Is this practice important?"

The boy shook his head, "no, this is just for fun; we can talk as we get to my house."

So Will and Helen walked out of the field to talk, "so what's the matter?" Will asked he swept the sweat from his face.

"It's a long story but, it ended up that Reala had he fifth Ideya, then Reala took Pammy with him…then Jackle came to the Waking World, and transported NiGHTS and Bridget to the Dream World. Pammy then came back and dumped Devin right on the spot, saying that she and Reala are together. Then Pammy and I got into a fight…"

Will closed his eyes then took a deep breath, "So, you're upset about Reala and Pammy getting back together? That, I can understand. "

"Well, it's not only that," said Helen, "but Bridget has a very childish crush on Jackle. This whole human having relationships with Nightmarens is so upsetting. I can even tell that NiGHTS doesn't like it. "

Will gave Helen a shrug, "well, this is only a thought, but, there isn't that much room for love for Nightmaren, they're too much like siblings for each other, maybe they're looking at different horizons."

"That's the case with Jackle at least," said Helen, as she remembered Jackle's desire for a girlfriend three years ago, then said "you know, you have a point, as long as Reala isn't tricking Pammy again, it's all right."

"Well," Will hesitated, "what I just said that it was only a thought, but in this day and age, I think it is just better to just accept that humans and Nightmaren are together."

Helen looked at the sky; there was only one worry, which was about Bridget. She was still in the Dream World; she didn't think that humans would last long there.

* * *

Bridget soon enough opened and closed the door that connected Nightmare to the Dream Gate. What she saw was the typical, fountain and doors, not much to see there. She walked around the area multiple times. She felt kind of bored with no one to talk to.

At least until she saw a girl fall to the front of the Dream Gate. She had dirty blonde hair cut very short, with eyes that were covered by glasses, but Bridget assumed they were brown. The girl looked at Bridget, "you look kind of familiar."

"Really?" asked Bridget, she didn't seem to recognize the girl at all… "Do you come from Bellbridge?"

The girl nodded her head, "yeah, I do…but…Owl told me that Visitors never meet each other…it only happened twice."

"Well," Bridget explained, in which she knew that she was a great exception, "this is my physical body in this world."

The girl's eyes grew very wide, "what?" she asked, "how did that happen?"

"Oh," said Bridget, as she looked at her nails, "a cretin someone teleported me here."

"Like…Reala perhaps?" The girl thought she was spot on, since she did witness both NiGHTS and Reala disappear.

"Nope, Jackle," Bridget confirmed, "he's my boyfriend you know."

An eyebrow rose from the strange girl, "boyfriend? You're aware that most creatures of this world are genderless."

Bridget nodded her head, "yeah, I know," then she looked at a door, "is that one of your Nightopias?"

"My only one," she announced sadly, then looked down "NiGHTS disappeared in front of my eyes."

"Well, I know that NiGHTS is back," said Bridget, "he came with me when we went to the Dream World."

"Really?" the girl became excited; she opened the door right away.

Bridget had followed as the butterflies by the door began to fade away. What she saw was a computerized looking Nightopia. She had always thought of Nightopia has being grasslands, yet then again Bridget knew that Nightopia was created by dreamers. Bridget took a few steps, when she saw the girl talking to NiGHTS.

"Well Rebecca," NiGHTS began to explain, "Reala now has the power to go through the Waking World and the Dream World, thankfully I got back here in the Dream World."

"Good thing you did," said Rebecca, "talking to Owl was getting boring."

Bridget ran over to the two, "hey!" She cried out.

NiGHTS turned around and crossed his arms, "what do you want, shouldn't you be with Jackle?"

"I can take a break from my boyfriend," Bridget told NiGHTS.

A dark circle appeared above the ground; a card came out of it, and then hit a black tree with green wires growing by it. Then the orange Nightmaren himself came out of the circle. Jackle cackled very loudly, "Oh, Bridget, Bridget, Bridget, you're worse than NiGHTS!"

"Is…that Jackle?" Rebecca asked NiGHTS, she looked very frightened, as any Visitor would.

NiGHTS nodded his head, "yeah."

Another devious laugh came from Jackle, "looks like ~I~ will have to capture you both!" Soon enough, Jackle snapped his fingers then a prison appeared around NiGHTS.

A smirk came to NiGHTS; he knew that being a prisoner would not be for long, since there was still Rebecca who could save him.

Then Jackle looked at Bridget, "and for you, my little rebel!"

"What did I do wrong?" Bridget asked, as she tried to act as naïve as one possibility could. She now knew that Jackle wasn't testing her at all as she thought before, but that they were actual rules. At least from the way Jackle was acting.

A glare came from Jackle's eyes; he flew over to Bridget then tried to grab her.

Bridget was smarter than that, she took a jump backwards to escape Jackle's grasp. "Missed me, now what?"

Jackle tried to grab her again, but with no prevail, so Jackle tired again.

As Bridget jumped out of the way for the third time, she hit the tree that got his by Jackle's previous Card. She screamed from the pain from being hit by the tree, she kneeled onto the ground as she cursed and held onto her head.

The pain that Bridget felt was a good opportunity for Jackle, he grabbed her, then went back to the portal that was still opened.

* * *

Will went over to the Dream Gate to find Helen, "Hey Helen!" He called out then waved.

Helen was talking to Owl, or more like arguing. "Come on Owl," Helen cried out, "we need to get to Nightmare! Don't you even understand that our friend is there?"

"Young lady," Owl was surprised by what Helen had said, "I know everything about the Night Dimension and from what I know; Nightmare is too dangerous for a Visitor to go alone, especially for a Visitor with all of their Ideya."

Will ran over to the two, as he wondered what was going on, so he asked, "What's the matter?"

"This young woman wants to go to Nightmare!" Owl called out, appalled as he could ever be, "for chit chat with Nightmaren too!"

Will shook his head, "Owl, didn't you know that we've met Reala in the Waking World? We've kind of warmed up to him."

Helen gave Will a look, and then went along with it, she said "yeah, we've warmed up to Reala."

Owl found it hard to believe, but then a dark looking door appeared, then Owl sighed, "Fine, but I have warned you." Owl soon enough disappeared.

Both Will and Helen opened the door, only to find nothing, only a void of darkness.

Will took a deep breath, "well, here we go!" He took a step, which felt solid to him, so he took another step, then another. Helen had followed will through the steps of Nightmare.

* * *

When Helen and Will had gotten to the center of Nightmare, where the castle was, they opened the huge doors which entered the castle. What they saw was the usual dark interior of a castle, it seemed to be made out of stone, but was surprisingly clean!

Will and Helen walked down the area, to see many different doors. They didn't look the same, they had different colors, although, there weren't names on any of the doors, so to find that right one was kind of confusing.

Will opened a door, where they found a room which resembled a large dining room. They saw a round, pink, ball like Nightmaren. "Um," Will began to hesitate, "have you seen Reala?"

Instead of answering the question, the Nightmaren attacked Will, but Will kicked the nightmaren to the wall, which ricocheted back to Will. So Will ducked downwards so the Nightmaren would not hit him.

Helen took a close look at the Nightmaren, she actually recognized her, in the Waking World, she was a friend of May, Helen's sister, the Nightmaren was part of May's theatre group before May went to college, "Puffy?"

That was when Puffy stopped fighting Will, and then looked at Helen, "Helen?" Puffy bounced over to Helen, then took a look at her, "my have you grown?"

"Three years since we've met," said Helen, then came to a different subject, "we are looking for Reala, mostly to find my friend, Pammy, have you seen them?"

Thoughts when through Puffy's head, as a Nightmaren she shouldn't be helping Visitors, yet then again, she had helped NiGHTS with the attempt to prevent the revival of Wizeman, in conclusion, she decided to help the two Visistors, "I can show you to Reala's room." She bounced to a door that had red and black checkers on it; she opened the door to see Reala, sitting on his throne.

Will and Helen walked into the room, they both didn't say anything, they looked at each other trying to see if the other would talk first.

"What do you want?" Reala scowled, it seemed as though he didn't want to be bothered.

"Well," said Will, brave enough to speak up, "Helen supposed that Pammy was here, they got into a fight, and Helen wanted to apologize."

Reala looked at Helen, "and you're letting your boyfriend do the talking?"

A sigh came out of Helen's mouth, "I do want to apologize, because, Pammy and I take it way back, even before Joy moved to Bellbridge in our fourth year of Primary School. I've never knew that we would break up over something so silly, something that had to do with a world that wasn't our own. Going to the Night Dimension and meeting NiGHTS was indeed the greatest thing that happened to me, but, if it makes me not be friends with Pammy anymore. Then I would say that it's the worst thing to happen to a Visitor, even with all of my Ideya. I am willing to accept Nightmaren and Visitor relationships just to be friends with Pammy again!"

That was when Helen felt an embrace around her. When Helen looked back she saw that it was Pammy that was giving her the hug. "You've heard the whole thing, didn't you?"

Pammy giggled, "Not the whole thing, I might have come here around the middle of it."

Reala flew over to the two friends, "enough with the reunion, where were you? And why weren't you asleep?"

"My father had to work late, and my mom wouldn't let me sleep until my dad heard the news that I tried to run away," was Pammy's explanation, "yet when Dad got home, he wanted to go to bed. I'm only grounded for a month."

"Aw, that stinks," Will cried out, "that's a whole month out of your summer!"

"And I don't care," Reala pushed Helen out of the way, "as long as she isn't grounded from the Dream World, I'm fine."

"Well, I'm only grounded because I didn't tell them about the Dream World," Said Pammy, "and you're not in trouble, since I didn't say that you kidnapped me."

There was a knock on the door, Reala sighed, then opened the door to find Bridget. "What in Wizeman's name do you want?"

"Help," was Bridget's single worded answer. She was sweating all over her body, taking deep puffs of breath, as if she was running for a long time. Her hands were closed tightly shut, as if she was holding something in her hands. Bridget just didn't know what to do, and she hoped that Reala, Will, Helen or Pammy had any type of solution.


	13. Actuality 13: Commitment

A/N: I am really just trying to finish this story here. I am not particularly proud of this chapter. I am sorry that this is awful, but I am just trying to wrap things up. I feel like that I shouldn't stop a story at the climax, so I am continuing.

NiGHTS Back to Earth

Actuality 13

Helen couldn't help but look at Birdget's clasped hand. Although she looked over at Bridget's eyes so she could stop staring at her twitching hands. The eyes were filled with fear, as tears ran down them, it was obvious that something was truly wrong with Bridget; Helen was just scared to ask.

It all fell to silence; everyone felt the same way as Helen. So it was Pammy who came to ask, "What do you need help with?"

Bridget walked into the room, and then slammed the door shut. She continued to take the deep breaths from running so much. She sat down onto the ground in exhaust.

"Geeze, Jackle's room isn't too far from here," Reala rolled his eyes, "you Visitors are so easily tired."

"I was sprinting," Bridget talked back to Reala, "besides, I have bigger things to deal with…Jackle…has…."

"Been overbearing, I know," Helen told Bridget, "I have warned you about Jackle, and did you listen? No!"

Bridget nodded her head, "well, yes, but that's not the worst of it."

"There is something worse than Jackle?" Will had said out loud. This he had found hard to believe, Jackle was a nightmare even in the Waking World.

Bridget got back up from the ground, "well, it still involves Jackle, just in the worst possible scenario that anyone would be involved with Jackle."

Reala had taken that as a challenge, he had thought deeply about what the worse could be, "he wants to kill you?"

"No," Pammy shook her head, "not to Bridget, I mean, Jackle wanting to kill someone would be most awful to happen to someone, but I doubt he would want to kill Bridget."

Bridget also shook her head, "Jackle doesn't want to kill me; so what happened to me is probably not to worst thing that could happen…but still pretty bad."

"So what is it?" Will had asked impatiently.

Bridget opened up her hand…

**

Joy hung her body upside down as she lied on her bed, bored. She knew that she shouldn't have had that can of Red Bull. She turned on the television to see a show on Wedding planning. Joy sat back up, and got her sketch book. Wedding planning does sound kind of fun according to the TV show. She began to draw her friend Helen. On Helen's body was a wedding dress, she drew Will next to her with a tuxedo. "They do make a good couple," Joy told herself, "now how about Pammy and Devin?"

**

The hand of Bridget's revealed a ring once she opened it. It was pretty simple, black, with gold lining.

Reala just slapped his forehead, "Jackle, why would you want such a commitment?"

"Um, Jackle isn't here," Will pointed out, "but I do ask myself the same thing."

"Well, Jackle has been so serious lately," Bridget had pointed out, "setting up rules, and even the will to ask me—

"It is ridiculous," Helen cried out, "for one thing, there are no laws in Nightmare. Another thing, Bridget is only fourteen, so even if there are laws, it would be illegal!"

"What I mean, I'm fifteen, isn't this queen thing illegal?" Pammy began to sing out jokingly.

Bridget gave Pammy a glare, "this is no time for Buffy references, Jackle is looking for me, and I need help, fast!"

Pammy put up her hands in defense, "fine, I guess the only solution is to send you back to the Waking World.

There was a hesitating sound from Bridget, "but, this maybe my only chance with the one I love…"

"Yeah, but," Helen began, "your duration in Nightmare will probably not last long, besides, if you're really in love, you would want to be with Jackle forever. I know that Will is someone I would live eternity with if we could live that long."

"I guess… you're right…" Bridget told Helen, "Maybe, it's just that Jackle was the first…thing…that I got along with, so I took it the wrong way."

Helen nodded her head, "probably, I think you should tell Jackle the truth."

"Yeah," Bridget agreed, "I should…" She walked over to the door to open it, but Reala got in the way.

"Weren't we just discussing that the worst thing that could happen is for Jackle to want to kill you? Well, if you told him the truth, he would want to kill you." Reala told Bridget.

What Reala had spoken was so plausible, Bridget had stepped back, "and then, can you send me back to the Waking World?"

Everyone was saying, "Yes" in their heads. No one liked Jackle having a girlfriend, or fiancé in that matter. Reala was ready to paraloop Bridget back to the Waking World, but the door suddenly opened.

**

Joy finished drawing Pammy in a wedding dress with Devin, she frowned then she took out her eraser and erased the whole picture. The picture turned into a clean slate, only with rolls of eraser on it. She wiped the eraser bits off of and began to draw again, "how about something untraditional?" She drew Pammy in a black and grey, poofy dress, with black arm-warmers, a fishnet veil and a mini top hat. Yet she didn't draw Devin next to her, instead, she drew Reala, in his full Nightmaren form.

**

When the door opened, the group had seen Jackle. He had his deck of cards out and threw one at Reala.

Reala looked up then caught the card with his hand; he gave his brother a glare, "Jackle, why can't you think for a second about what you're doing?"

Instead of listening to Reala's and Jackle's conversation, Bridget tried to sneak away from the two. She neither wanted to marry Jackle nor go back to the Waking World. Yet probably going to the Waking World was the preferred choice.

Bridget was about to go through the door, when Jackle yelled out, "hey, what do you think you're doing?"

That was when Reala had remembered when that old woman at the occult store had told him to stop when he was stealing the artificial Ideya. He did what she said, then paid the consequences. If Bridget had stopped, she would have faced some serious consequences.

Bridget was about to face some consequences, since she slowed down.

Reala acted quickly, "run you idiot!"

Bridget had kept on running as fast as she could, yet she didn't realized that the door was closed then bumped into the door.

Jackle laughed very loudly, he thought that this is hilarious along with satisfying. "And how many times have you bumped into things?"

"I'm clumsy okay?" Bridget gave a bit of an attitude. Then she realized that her clumsiness was a downfall, "I guess that's no ticket to the Waking World?"

Jackle shook their head.

**

The next day, Pammy went over to Devin's house, she pressed firmly onto the doorbell for a few seconds, and then released. The redhead took a deep breath, she was kind of nervous about telling her ex-boyfriend some bad news about his little sister.

The door was answered by Devin, "Hi Pams," he told her, and then sighed, "What do you need?"

"I just, would like to talk to you," Pammy told Devin, "you know, as friends."

Devin went outside then closed the door; he sat on the front step.

Pammy sat down with Devin, "so, did you report Bridget as 'missing' yet?"

A nod came to Devin's head, "yeah, I can't tell my parents what happened though, they wouldn't believe me."

Pammy bit her lip, which was when the news had to come out, "I think she maybe missing for years, she is under the hands of a lunatic after all."

"You mean Jackle, don't you?" Devin put his head down between his knees.

"And prepare yourself to have a new brother-in-law," Pammy had finally released the news, "they're going to get married."

Devin's head immediately went back up, "what? That soon? Bridget maybe socially awkward, but she's smarter than that!"

"Well, the good news is she's unwilling," then Pammy realized something after she had said that, "or is that bad news? I'm not sure."

"And you're not doing anything about it?" was Devin's comment, "because if Reala was forcing you to marry him, I would do everything to stop him."

A sudden standing of Pammy's feet came by, "you know, you're right! Bridget may not be my friend, but she's your sister! We need to stop this wedding!"

"You just need a plan of how," said Devin.

"A classic objection at the wedding?" Pammy suggested.

Devin shrugged, "cliché, but would get her out of trouble."

Pammy sighed, "Well, if my plan goes wrong, at least Wizeman would object to this."

***

Jackle had bowed down to Wizeman, "Master, I have the girl in my clutches. We will marry in three days."

"Very good," said Wizeman, "your little plan of marrying the girl is perfect! I will give the ceremony myself. That girl knows almost too much about the Night Dimension, which would make a perfect companion for Nightmare."

"Um, yeah….plan…." Jackle's eyes went shifty, he really just wanted a companion, but 'plan' is another way of putting his new situation of having a fiancé.


	14. Actuality 14: Plan

NiGHTS: Back to Earth

Actuality 14

The song "Dreams Dreams" was indeed written by NiGHTS. It was also NiGHTS' favorite song. The Nightmaren played that very song on his invisible flute, as he thought about the situation with Visitors and Nightmaren, together for love. Of course NiGHTS didn't approve of Nightmaren and Visitor couples. Even if NiGHTS did feel like a matchmaker for Visitors. Just not in the way in which the love would cross dimensions. Very much like Claris and Elliot, nothing would be serious. It wasn't like there would be inter-dimensional marriage or anything in the manner.

NiGHTS was actually waiting for Rebecca in her new Nightopia, yet he suddenly felt some danger around him. The knowledge of danger came to NiGHTS when he saw a Goodle, "shoot," NiGHTS told himself, this wouldn't be very pretty from NiGHTS' educated guess.

Yet the Goodle approached NiGHTS with a fancy orange and black envelope, and gave the envelope to NiGHTS; then it quickly left.

A surprised feeling came to NiGHTS, surprised that the Goodle didn't capture him at all, that was convenient. NiGHTS opened the letter then read it, "and invitation to…" NiGHTS immediately dropped the letter; he had thought too soon, NiGHTS felt like a teenaged child, wanting to cry on a shoulder. Yet NiGHTS felt too strong for that, too…strong to act like a teenager, with a friend taken away from him. Nicholas was only a disguise; there is no real immaturity in him.

Rebecca came into Nightopia, where she saw NiGHTS, who looked a little down. Rebecca ran over to NiGHTS, and then asked, "What's the matter?"

"Rebecca, how long is marriage?" was all NiGHTS asked.

"Well, it matters by the couple," Rebecca answered, "but according to most faiths, its forever."

**

Joy was only told about the conflicting worlds of Nightopia and Nightmare. Yet the first time she had came to either, was that very moment. After a Red Bull crash, all Joy could do was to sleep. Yet Joy wasn't having a nightmare, even if she was in Nightmare, a distorted looking room didn't scare her in the least. She saw Jackle's head appear, that made Joy yelp a little.

"Your passion…is in fashion design and sewing…right?" The head had spoken to the teenage girl.

If the head was going to ask about her talents, Joy was fine with this nightmare, "Well, I am a jack of all trades, I draw, sew and write," Joy was proud of her many talents since most of her friends had only a single talents in their bodies.

"Then, you will design and make the dress for my bride," Jackle commanded Joy.

"Your…bride?" Joy asked, "If you need a dress for her so badly, then what's in it for me?"

"How would you like to never come to Nightmare again?" was Jackle's deal.

"I don't come here often," Joy told Jackle, she was not enthusiastic about the deal, "think of something better."

Jackle knew Joy's talent very well, and he didn't want to lose it to her selfishness, his eyes began to glow red, and he cried out, "how about I don't kill you?"

A twitch came to Joy, "fine," she told the orange Nightmaren, "but you better keep your word!"

"I will," said Jackle, "as long and you keep yours."

Bridget walked by the two, when she recognized Joy, "what are you doing in Nightmare?"

"I may ask the same thing," was Joy's response.

"Well, she would be my bride," Jackle introduced Bridget at Joy, "but it seems like you know each other already."

As Jackle talked, Bridget mouthed out a "help me," to Joy. Bridget needed all of the help she could get, she had no knowledge of Reala helping her, and she had no clue about Pammy and her friends. Joy was a friend of Pammy, and it was best that Joy would know too.

"Well," Joy began to speak to Bridget, "what are you looking for in a dress?"

Bridget shrugged, "I don't know, as long as it fits its fine."

Jackle gave Bridget a slight glare, "how about something to match your eyes?"

Joy looked closely at Bridget's face; it was often difficult to tell one's eye color without looking that closely, "so they're blue?" Joy had concluded.

"I guess," Bridget looked down to the ground. Bridget really didn't care so much about the details. She was glad to marry in her jeans and t-shirt, or even not to get married at all. "But aren't most wedding dresses white?"

Joy wanted to answer that question quite badly, "well, who cares about traditions? We should go for a wild wedding, one that breaks the rules, a wedding like no other…."

"And that is why I hired you," Jackle gave a maniacal laugh. Jackle liked Joy's attitude with the nontraditional. It's a good thing that Joy didn't die tonight, Jackle needed her for the wedding; he knew that for a fact.

***

Even as a rebel, NiGHTS was still the brother of Jackle and Reala, and he still wanted to help Jackle with his mistake. Yet NiGHTS knew that talking to Jackle wouldn't help. Instead, he summoned Will and Helen to execute a plan. Once Will and Helen came to the Dream Gate, NiGHTS told the two the news, "Okay, you won't believe this but, Jackle has gone really crazy and…."

"Is trying to marry Bridget," Helen interrupted the rebellious Nightmaren, "we went to Nightmare last night." Helen said the whole part like it wasn't even news.

"What?" NiGHTS yelled out, "You went to Nightmare without me?" NiGHTS couldn't believe it, Will and Helen were completely vulnerable out in Nightmare. NiGHTS was only glad that they weren't hurt.

"Well, we didn't know that you wanted to come with us," Will implied, "but you would have been welcome to come last night."

If NiGHTS had eyebrows, he would be rubbing them with annoyance, but he continued, "Well, you may have to come to Nightmare again, we have to stop the wedding, somehow."

A void of darkness came to be, and who emerged from the darkness were no other than Reala and Pammy. Reala was hesitant about his announcement, but made it anyway, "NiGHTS, since Pammy wants to help Bridget…" a light pause came to Reala, he really didn't want to admit to this, "I will help you cancel this wedding."

"Well, then," said NiGHTS playfully, "what will you bring to the table?"

Reala looked at Pammy, then gave a blatant comment, "well NiGHTS, how about my paraloop ability to go through different worlds?"

Suddenly, NiGHTS didn't like the idea of working with Reala, but his brother was correct, probably sending Bridget back to the Waking World would make the best escape for the girl. "Okay, then how can we take the girl away from Jackle?"

Pammy rose up her hand excitedly then told the entire group, "I will distract Jackle and the rest of the wedding guests! I have a wonderful talent in distracting people!"

Reala had a worried look on his face, "are you sure?" Reala had asked the girl, "This could be too dangerous for a Visitor like yourself!"

"Aw, you just don't want me to get hurt," Pammy flung her hand, "you're sweet and all, but we must assess the situation at hand. I'm the best distraction, so I must take myself as the bait."

Before Reala could oppose, NiGHTS said, "sure, then Helen's and Will's job will signal Bridget to get out of the way, and I will lead Birdget to Reala, and Reala will send Bridget back to the Waking World. Sounds like a plan?"

Reala gave a slight glare to Pammy, then at NiGHTS, but he nodded his head, "sure, if this will save the girl's life."

**

The next morning, Joy was looking through her sketchbook, she had dreamed of planning a wedding in many different ways. She looked at an empty page, and then began to sketch out a dress. She wanted to take her time with this dress, something that Bridget would like.

Yet something was missing, Joy rubbed her head, then took out her cell phone to call Pammy.

**

Pammy sat down to eat her cereal, when her mother, Tina, came into the kitchen. "So, I've gotten a phone call from Shannon, Devin's mom?"

Pammy had a worried look on her face, she wondered what Devin said, and she really hoped that he didn't say anything about Nightmare, or where Bridget really was located.

"She saw you talking to Devin at the front door," Tina told her daughter.

"And?" Pammy asked, a bit confused about what was so bad about talking to an ex-boyfriend.

A stern look came to Tina, "you're supposed to be grounded, which usually means that you can't leave the house!"

"Oh…" Pammy looked back down to her cereal, she was really going to be in trouble, "I forgot that I was grounded it's just," Pammy hesitated for a moment, and then admitted, "When I've heard that Bridget also went missing, I had to come support him..."

Tina gave a big sigh, "well, if it's to support Devin, I guess I'll let you off the hook…."

Then Pammy's cellphone rang, she looked at the caller ID to see that it was Joy. Pammy answered the phone, "hello?"

"Hey!" Joy chirped up, "have you heard about Bridget and Jackle?"

Pammy stood up, and then walked out of the kitchen, since she didn't want to talk about the very subject in front of her mother. She gave a huge sigh, "yes, I've heard."

"And guess who's planning the wedding?" Joy said in a proud manner.

Pammy blinked in disbelief for a second, she knew who it was Joy, but it was kind of odd that Joy was actually be present in the Dream World. Then she smiled, perhaps this would come to her advantage, "so you're the one planning the wedding?"

"Yep," said Joy, "but I need some help with the dress."

Pammy grinned, "Well, I could help you with the dress, if you help me with Bridget's escape!"

"Escape?" Joy asked, then hesitated when she said "I guess she didn't seem so excited about getting married…"

"So how about making the dress so it's more accessible to run away?" Pammy asked, "A shorter skirt?"

A short pause came to Joy, "The dress that I have looks better long," then Joy came up with an idea, "but she could always rip off half of it to become a mini skirt."

"Yeah," Pammy exclaimed, "sounds great!"

"Yet I still feel like something is missing…" Joy had expressed to Pammy.

"Well, scan me the pictures and I'll think of something," was Pammy's suggestion, she knew that Joy was really into her art, so Pammy would help as much as she could, even if it was for the event she dreaded.

**

The Waking Watcher was alone, after three years of constant use, it stopped being used. At least until Reala picked it up again.

It was to Reala's knowledge that Pammy hated it when he used the Waking Watcher to watch her actives in the World of the Waking. Yet it was difficult to resist seeing her in the Waking World. So Reala tuned the Waking Watcher to Pammy.

Pammy was on the phone with Joy, talking about the wedding, mostly about how Joy can help make Bridget's escape easier.

"So a skirt that can become shorter and she can have ballet flat," Pammy told her friend, "thanks so much for the help!"

Just then, Jackle came into Reala's room, "Hey Reala, what's up?"

Reala stared so deeply into the Waking Watcher, "nothing," he said, and continued to look, entranced by Pammy.

Jackle looked over Reala's shoulder.

In the Waking Watcher, Pammy cheered out to the phone, "and thanks to you, we are sure that Bridget will make her way back to the Waking World."

Jackle gave Reala a glare, "and what are they talking about?"

Reala looked over at Jackle, he suddenly came to realization that Jackle had just found out about the plan. "Well, Jackle, the Visitors do not like you and Bridget marrying, they're afraid that they'll never see their friend again."

Jackle just rolled his eyes, "Oh, 'friend' you say? Bridget doesn't have any friends, except for me of course!"

Reala glared at Jackle back, "well, how about me, Pammy, NiGHTS, Helen and Will? She's over exaggerating; she had made friends since I've met her. She just doesn't realize it!"

"Well, I will find a way to stop you!" cried out Jackle, "I'll tell Wizeman about your defiance!"

"How will Wizeman want to help?" Reala asked, "He wouldn't even care!"

A devious smile came to Jackle, "oh, he cares more than you think."

Reala gave Jackle a "you are crazy" kind of look, "I think we'll be fine." Reala flew away, willing to ignore what is yet to come, for he doubted that Jackle had any power to stop Reala.


	15. Actuality 15: Together

NiGHTS: Back to Earth

Actuality 15

Bridget looked down at her dress, it went down beyond to the floor, its orange and white color illuminated, with many petticoats layering underneath "and this will help me escape ~how~?"

Joy looks around the dress, then had forgotten, "oops," she expressed to herself, "I forgot to add the features that would make the dress good for running away."

"Well," Bridget sighed as she continued to look at her dress, "I think I can cope."

"Well, at least the shoes aren't so bad," Joy picked up a black pair of white Mary Janes.

"Yeah, at least they're not high heels or anything," Bridget shrugged.

Joy looked at the back of the shoes, "nope," she said, "they're heels!"

"Why did you buy me heels if you knew that I needed to run?" Bridget took the shoes, and then put them on her feet.

"Because they look cute!" Joy squealed, "I couldn't back away from them!"

Bridget hadn't known Joy for too long, but the bride knew that her designer was an extreme fashion freak. Joy was so much of a fashion freak, that she took fashion over form any day. Bridget knew that her clumsy nature was her downfall, but Joy's obsession with appearance was Joy's downfall.

**

"What do you mean that I can't come to inside?" NiGHTS cried out to Queen Bella, who was guarding to door to Nightmare Castle.

"Sorry," Bella shrugged with all eight of her shoulders, "I know that Jackle sent you an invitation, but he's became a little paranoid about the other first rank Nightmaren coming to the wedding. I know that it took a lot for you to get here, but you will have to leave."

As Bella talked, Will, Helen and Pammy snuck into the castle. They looked around the hallway with many doors. It looked like a maze through the Visitors' perspective.

"So, what room would the wedding be in?" Helen asked.

Will looked at an orange door which said, "Bridget" on it. Will opened to door to find Joy braiding Bridget's hair. Joy had finished braiding the hair, then took out some pins and began to curl one of the two braids, pinning the hair once in a while.

"Joy?" Helen asked, "What in Wizeman's name are you doing here?"

"I'm doing Bridget's hair!" Joy told Helen, "and it looks so nice so far."

"Oh right," Pammy stated to Helen, "Joy is planning the wedding."

Helen facepalmed herself, "Joy, why are you helping?"

"Because I've always wanted to plan a wedding!" Joy exclaimed.

Helen's palm was still on her face, she had never heard of that desire ever in her life of knowing Joy, "Since when?" asked Helen.

"Ever since I've seen those wedding reality shows," was Joy's answer, which didn't really define, "always" but it was the truth.

"Anyways," Pammy jumped into the conversation, "Joy has a way to make the dress more accessible for running. So she is helping us in the end."

"Oh, about that," said Joy, "I forgot to make the dress rippable."

"Also," Bridget looked down at her feet, "she gave me heels."

"Joy, you're not helping," Helen gave her friend a glare.

"Sorry," said Joy, "fashion over form, I've always said."

**

A few minutes before the wedding, Jackle was next to Wizeman at an altar like setting, "where's Reala?" Jackle came to ask.

"I thought you didn't welcome Reala," said Wizeman, "since he will ruin our plan."

"Yes, but I've expected him to try," observed Jackle, "this is strange."

"Indeed," Wizeman agreed with Jackle for once, "there is something strange going on."

That was when Joy approached the two, "five minutes until the ceremony," she told them, then she looked behind herself to see Donbalon bouncing by with a giant pot of flowers "also, a gift from Puffy and Donbalon," she told the two.

The Donbalon put the pot behind Jackle and Wizeman.

"Four minutes," Joy told Wizeman, "I'll get Bridget."

**

At the Castle's courtyard, Reala sat on the air as he waited for Bridget to come. He suddenly heard something then stood up, only to see NiGHTS. "NiGHTS, how did you get here?"

"I took the back door," NiGHTS exclaimed to Reala.

"There's a back door?" Reala asked in disbelief.

"Pfft, duh, I made Will believe there was a back door, so now there's a back door" NiGHTS explained to his brother, "that's what's so great about befriending Visitors; you should do it more often."

"How about Pammy?" Reala asked, "I've befriended her."

NiGHTS rolled his eyes, Pammy so didn't count at all; their relationship was just too complex, "and where is Pammy right now?"

"Pretending to be some girl from some musical called 'Hairspray,'" Reala said, "something about taking inspiration from the movie. Her 'distraction' is pretty much singing a song from that musical."

"I like Pammy's singing," NiGHTS said, "it's very nice."

"Have you ever heard her sing?" Reala asked.

"No," NiGHTS shrugged, "but she has a nice speaking voice, so it must be good at singing."

"She's not as good at singing as I am," Reala boasted, he really thought that his skills on stage were superior to Pammy's despite of compared experiences.

"Well, I better go find Will and Helen," said NiGHTS, "they are suppose to lead Bridget to me."

"Okay," Reala sat back onto the air, "go find the Visitors that you've befriended."

NiGHTS drill dashed out of the courtyard, and into the castle to find his friends.

**

"And you, Bridget, take Jackle as your husband?" Wizeman asked the bride.

Bridget looked around, at the Nightmaren as they were expecting her correct answer. She knew what her opinions were, but were they the right opinions for the situation? Bridget bit her lip, and nodded her head, "yeah, I do."

"And if anyone objects, speak now or forever hold their peace!" Wizeman announced.

That was when smoke emerged from the flower pot that Puffy and Donbalon gave to the almost newlyweds. Everyone heard a voice that said, "I object!" the one who yelled that out was no other than a red headed girl with her long hair down, wearing a black pleather mini skirt, with red fluffy leg warmer, a black tank top with a red fishnet shirt underneath. She began to sing, "Hey, hey, you, you, I don't like your girlfriend! No way, no way, I think you need a new one!"

Joy had a jealous look on her face.

Bridget slightly covered her ears; she didn't like that song, as much as she didn't like the artist. She looked around, this must have been some sort of distraction. Bridget saw a football flying, which eventually hit her head, "ow." She looked to see that the ball came from Will, who was standing next to Helen. "What was that for?"

"Come on," Helen yelled out, "Pammy's song won't last forever."

Bridget looked at her dress; she could not run in what she was wearing. Yet she had to try, so Bridget picked up the sides of her dress and tried to run, but an orange hand grabbed her arm.

Of course, the hand that grabbed Bridget's arm belonged to Jackle, "where are you going?"

Another bite came to Bridget's lip, she had to think of something, so she had to say the truth, she said "I hate this song," then she lied, "so much, that I have to leave for a little while."

"Then I will come with," Jackle announced, "Reala might be out there."

"And what is wrong with Reala?" Bridget asked Jackle in a naïve manner, she knew what Reala was up to from Joy, but Bridget had to hide the fact that she knew anything about her escape.

"He wants you out of Nightmare," Jackle noted.

Bridget reject Jackle's offer, "Well, I'll watch out for Reala alone, you better stop Pammy."

Yet suddenly, Wizeman took action, he summoned a tornado and blew Pammy to the end of the room.

The body of Pammy landed onto Will.

Both Will and Pammy scream from the pain from the landing. Whether it was the landing itself, or being landed on, it was a painful experience for someone who was dreaming.

If Wizeman had a throat, then he would have cleared it up to say, "Now, you may kiss the bride."

Bridget thought that there would be success in her going back into the Waking World. Yet she saw the end of her own wedding, right there and then. The kiss was short, or at least it seemed short to Bridget's point of view. Everything was over, and Bridget was officially married. She looked at her ring; it was a black band with a gold design upon the piece of jewelry. Bridget had run off to the trio in the back of the room. "What were you thinking?"

"What?" asked Pammy, "I thought that song associated well with this situation."

"Well, it's too late now," Bridget sighed, "I'm married to Jackle, it's over."

Will looked back at NiGHTS who waved that the four. Will announced his idea, "Well, perhaps there is still a chance at Bridget leading to her normal life in the Waking World.

Helen nodded her head, "Yeah, let's take her to NiGHTS, she at least has a chance."

So the four ran over to NiGHTS, who looked at them impatiently, "What took you so long?"

"Long story, we'll tell it later," Bridget said, "I need to get to the Waking World."

"Fine," said NiGHTS, "Reala is at the courtyard, I'll take you there."

"Nightmare Castle has a courtyard?" Pammy asked NiGHTS, in sort of disbelief that the castle would have a courtyard.

"Yeah," NiGHTS nodded his head, "you can come with me if you want to see it."

Pammy shrugged her shoulder, "okay," she said, and then ran next to NiGHTS and Bridget to the courtyard.

**

The courtyard of Nightmare Castle wasn't an amazing place; it had grass, a tree and a bench. Pammy was not too enthusiastic about this courtyard NiGHTS had referred to, it was just an average courtyard. Pammy then saw Reala then gave him a salute.

Reala wasn't too keen about Pammy at the moment. Her singing was so loud that he heard it very well. "That song didn't sound like it was from a musical named, 'Hairspray.'" Reala was not amused.

"No, it's sung by a punk musician," Pammy told Reala, "I found the context good for the situation."

"But…you song choice failed," Bridget observed, "Also, the artist is pop, not punk."

"Well, enough about musicians, let's get the girl home," said Reala.

"How about not?" Jackle had emerged from the shadows, with Wizeman behind him.

"Reala, stop this nonsense immediately," Wizeman said with his booming voice.

Reala was a very loyal Nightmaren, and Wizeman, his master, didn't look so happy about Reala. Reala didn't really know why Wizeman would care so much about an Ideyaless Dreamer. It wasn't like she had the same amount of knowledge as Owl. That was when it hit Reala, of course, the only redeeming quality about Bridget, she knew a lot about the Dream Realm. Wizeman just wanted an "Owl" for Nightmare. "Master, I suppose you want this girl's knowledge?"

"Yes," said Wizeman, "and you are getting in the way of my source of knowledge."

"Greatest apologize Master," Reala bowed to Wizeman. Even if Reala's mission would be a complete, 100% failure, he shouldn't disobey his master, or else he would end up like NiGHTS.

NiGHTS, on the other hand objected to Reala's actions. "Wizeman, there's no way Bridget is staying in the Dream World."

"Oh, and you're willing to stop us?" Wizeman asked.

Of course NiGHTS didn't know where the Visitors were, since he needed their power, yet NiGHTS also needed to not show any weakness. "Yes," NiGHTS had came to admit, "I am willing to stop you."

"Oh, but you aren't just fighting me," Wizeman used on of his hands, and zapped Jackle. Slowly, Jackle began to transform, four more hands appeared around Jackle's along with more horns on his head. The eyes on the Nightmaren began to glow red, along with the shade of orange that went much redder than usual. Jackle flew back into the castle, as NiGHTS flew along with Jackle.

Wizeman was gone, but NiGHTS thought that he could handle Jackle. NiGHTS was about to fly over to Jackle, but a whole bunch of cards flown at NiGHTS, which hit the purple Nightmaren harshly. Yet NiGHTS got up and drill dashed out of the way to pull Jackle's cape off, but no prevail.

Jackle's voice sounded more booming than usual as he laughed a maniacal laugh, "no Ideya, can't defeat me!"

Of course, NiGHTS needed to borrow the power of a Visitor, of course Bridget had no Ideya and Pammy was very questionable, so NiGHTS commanded "Pammy, get Will and Helen!"

"Way ahead of you," Pammy called out; as she saw Will and Helen run over to the group. Pammy waved her hand rapidly to the two as she called out, "hey!"

Will and Helen waved back, as they approached NiGHTS, they both took out there hands.

Yet when they tried to dualize, a card hit Helen directly on the head. A loud scream came from Helen's mouth.

"Helen!" Will cried out, and then he glared at Jackle, "Why?"

"Why did you ask, 'why?'" asked Jackle.

"Why would you hurt Helen?" Will scream at Jackle, "She was defenseless!"

"So was I when she hurt me!" Jackle cried back, "She'll get up, just like how I did when she did the same thing to me."

"What in Wizeman's name do you mean?" NiGHTS asked, "Are you still upset about Helen? You're married, why would you care?"

"Well, you are trying to take my bride away from me!" Jackle yelled out to NiGHTS.

"I'll be fine," Helen projected out, "just go on without me!"

"Okay," NiGHTS nodded, he quickly flew to Jackle, but then Jackle made whirlwinds of cards, which NiGHTS dodged, then he went up to Jackle, and tried to pull his cape off again, but failed.

Cackling came out of Jackle's mouth, "being fused with Wizeman, I'm unstoppable!"

NiGHTS looked at Reala and Pammy, who were just standing there. "Hey, a little help here."

Reala had just realized that Pammy had some Ideya, not as much as Will and Helen, but at least the Ideya of Courage would do something yet Reala also didn't want to defy his master, the one who Reala was loyal to all of these years. Teaming up with NiGHTS would also be a pain.

"Why do you have to be so hesitant?" Pammy asked Reala, as she took out her hand and dualized with Reala, "let's go." Then they had flown into battle.

Jackle made many illusions of himself six of them surrounded NiGHTS and Reala. They both pulled the capes off of the illusions, in order to find the real one.

When NIGHTS had found the real Jackle, he yelled out to Reala, and Reala came to his aid.

It was successful, they both pulled off Jackle's cape, Reala threw the cape to a far distance, as NiGHTS tried to power touch Jackle, but he couldn't do it without Reala. So Reala came over to Jackle, and they both power touched Jackle.

"One down, three to go," said NiGHTS.

"How would you know that?" Reala asked.

"Defeating Jackle so many times lets me mark count," was NiGHTS' answer, "same for you."

Reala chuckled, they both power touched Jackle for a second time, "yet I change each time of how many hits it takes to defeat me."

NIGHTS giggled, "Oh, I know some secrets."

Jackle retrieved his cape as the two were talking; Will, Helen and Pammy noticed the occurrence. Will and Pammy immediately took control of the Nightmarens and tried to stop Jackle.

It was too late; Jackle put his cape back on, with both hands he fanned out some cards. Then fire appeared around them. Jackle juggled the cards and threw them at his fellow first rankers.

NiGHTS had dodged the cards gracefully, but Reala on the other hand, didn't.

"Ugg," Reala cried, "Pammy, you should have watched yourself!"

"Hey, I haven't flown in a while," Pammy yelled out.

Jackle took advantage of the fighting couple, and threw a tornado of cards at the dualized pair, in which neither or them noticed until they got hit.

"Ugg," Reala grunted, and then tried to continue, "Pammy…."

"Reala, there are more important matters to attend to," NiGHTS yelled out. Then flew up to Jackle, and tried to pull the cape off, but with no success.

So Reala flew over to Jackle, and pulled the cape off along with NiGHTS.

The two brothers were about to join together to defeat Jackle, but they heard a plea, "no, don't!" Yet neither of them listened, a giant red light came out of both of their hands, and Jackle was defeated.

Wizeman came out of Jackle's body, and Jackle was back to normal. "Well, you still lost, ~I~ have a wife now!

Reala took a look at Bridget, who looked a little horrified by the entire battle. He knew that his next move would save Bridget's living situation. He paralooped Bridget.

As Bridget sank, an ear piercing scream came out of Jackle, "how dare you!" Jackle went to Bridget then took out his hand, "here, take my hand, we will be together forever."

All Bridget could do was look down, "My normal life may be lonely, but…" then she looked up, "but I'll manage. I'll see you each night, I promise!"

Jackle tried to grab Bridget's hand anyway, but Reala pulled Jackle's cape upward, which prevented Jackle from grabbing Bridget. Another scream came from Jackle, "you freak! You absolute freak, let me go!"

"Hey, I have to manage it, so can you!" Reala said, "just deal."

The portal closed, but Jackle wasn't done yet. "Don't you remember? I still have my cards that can go to the Waking World!"

Yet Helen stood up, then grabbed the cards from him, "oh, yeah, I got up." Helen nodded, "hey, NiGHTS, catch!" Helen threw the deck at NiGHTS.

NiGHTS paralooped the deck, which made it completely disappear, "Looks like there is no entry to the Waking World."

"There's still Reala's boots," Wizeman pointed out, "Reala, give them to me…"

Reala obeyed his master, as he gave the boots to Wizeman. There was hope that Wizeman has good intentions for the boots.

"These will be in safe keeping, such power should not be abused," Wizeman then left with the boots.

**

Bridget made constant breaths, as she looked around her room, and then looked at her hand. The ring was still on her finger, yet…she didn't know what to do with it. So she took it off, and then put it on her bed stand. "At least I won't be lonely in my sleep," she told herself. Then Bridget saw that she was still in her wedding dress. She decided to take it off, then put on some pajamas. She hung the dress in her closet.

Bridget didn't feel tired at all, so she picked up a book to read, "Understanding the World of Dreams." She looked through the pages, to find that she knew more about the subject matter than what was in the book.


	16. Actuality 16: Epilouge

A/N: Just so the readers know, this is a epilogue, I have posted the conclusion at the same time, so if you haven't read chapter 15, go back and read it before you read this.

NiGHTS: Back to Earth

Epilogue

The next night, Pammy appeared in front of Reala as she dreamed of being with the red and black Nightmaren. She ran over to Reala, and gave him a peck on the cheek.

Reala smiled at Pammy, "you know, you act pretty cute sometimes."

Pammy slightly blushed, "I thought I would never heard such a complement from you. The last time you've complemented me was a fake trick."

"Whoever said those were fake complements?" Reala said, "Besides, it doesn't help but bug me what Wizeman did with my shoes."

"Kept them in a safe place?" was Pammy's hesitant answer, and then told Reala, "you shouldn't worry about it; we don't need them anymore."

"Good point," Reala sighed, "we sure don't need them."

**

"Hey, your name is Bridget, correct?" a girl with bright blue hair approached Bridget as she walked down the city of Bellbridge. This girl had green eyes, and pale skin, her dress was very dark, but alternative.

"Um, yeah, that's my name, how do you know it?" Bridget asked the girl.

"Well, being so lively in class, how could anyone not know your name?" the girl said, "I really like your style, but didn't have the guts to say, 'hi' to you until now."

"Why not?" Bridget asked.

"Well," the girl began, "everyone didn't seem to like you, and I was kind of shy…" then she spoke up, "but now you're here! My name is Erin by the way!"

"Oh, Erin Ramsey," Bridget confronted the girl, "I didn't recognize you from the hair."

"Well, no coloring hair in school," Erin rolled her eyes, "but want to get something to eat?"

"Sure, how about ice cream?" Bridget asked, "Who doesn't like ice cream?"

Erin laughed, "Good point, I particularly like pistachio flavored."

Bridget also laughed, "I found that a crazy flavor, but it taste great!"

"Yeah," Erin said, "it does!"

**

Bridget finally made a friend; Erin ended up not knowing much about the mythical worlds, but was willing to learn, as Bridget let Erin borrow her books. Bridget met Jackle nightly.

Will and Helen were still together, they felt connected as Perfect Dreamers, and hope to stay together.

Claris and Elliot went out on a date, and it went pretty well. They hope to go out on another one fairly soon.

Joy was still into fashion, yet stopped her phase of wedding planning and frilly dresses. Now she was into steam punk design.

Devin kept his grades up and was still good friends with Pammy. He was still bitter about the situation, but soon let it go when he and Joy decided to date.

May got into independent theatre, both acting and writing, and was happy about her job.

Jackle had a small problem with Bridget making a friend, but was glad that his wife would still come to him in her sleep, even if she stays up talking to Erin on the phone, online or face to face.

Reala still wondered what Wizeman did with those boots that teleported people from worlds, often had the desire to go back to the Waking World but knew that it would only cause even more chaos.

Pammy kept on with her life, met Reala nightly, and hope to get an acting career started soon.

NiGHTS was still a free Nightmaren, helping Visitors gather their Ideya, yet careful not to destroy Wizeman again, or else everyone would appear in the Waking World again.

The Waking World…

Should had the Nightmaren came in the first place? Most likely not, it caused a lot of trouble for the heroes, but they may have learned from both experiences. Yet for Nightmaren to come to the Waking World, will never happen again.

Thankfully.


End file.
